


The Golden Lotus

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Ireland, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in the fiercest of flames, the golden lotus can be planted.  Sam, Fiona, Ireland in the 90's, and the origins of love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Lotus

**Author's Note:**

>  Written for the Het Big Bang in 2011. Thank you to afullmargin for beta; thank you to hollymarchosias for providing [artwork](http://hetbigbang.weebly.com/hollymarchosias---the-golden-lotus-artwork.html) for the story. It's also [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/491600) on AO3.

~~~~~~~~

**Book One:**

_Dublin, Ireland,  
1995_

~~~~~~~~

Golden-orange flames poured from the windows of the armored bank   
car as Fiona Glenanne strode like a tigress up O’Connel Street. The   
silence cracked beneath a concussive sound as she forced her features   
into a mask of shock, hurrying as far away from the blast as she could   
on her new red spiked Laboutin heels. Though she cut a striking figure   
in the midday crowd, no one bothered to stop her – she looked like   
just another sophisticated colleen dealing with yet another day of   
conflict between the IRA and the British government. But deep within   
the pit of Fiona’s stomach a thrill as concussive as the bomb’s blast   
echoed, kissing her spine at the confusion and panic that resulted from   
the blaze sprouting up behind her. They had best be bloody well   
impressed; she’d spent hours the night before wiring those charges   
while Sean played lookout, studying the patterns of the drivers on the   
O’Connel. It wasn’t a money strike this time. No, this was a   
statement, a protest against bloody money – the boon and bane of   
every person in the Republic of Ireland. She relaxed a bit when the   
coppers waved her through the last security gate, knowing that the   
heavy cement she’d sunk the wires in had done its job in protecting   
the remote from detection by metal detectors.

After she crossed the street and rushed down a crooked brick alley,   
she found Sean sitting in his beaten-up Crown Vic, staring intently in   
her direction, a look that lost some of its intensity when he saw her   
face.

“I want a cigarette,” she declared.

He offered her a grin as he opened the door. “Is it done then?”

She smiled, pulling the remote from her fancy purse. “Well and done.   
You didn’t hear the shouts?”

“I did. Bang up job, tad. Did you…”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I waited for the area to clear. Do you think   
I’d kill innocent people?”

“Some days I can’t judge you,” he turned the ignition over, causing   
the motor of the Vic to buck and then purr. 

Fiona stared idly out the window as they passed through the streets of   
the city in which they’d been raised. Dirty pretty Dublin, family home   
of the clan Glenanne since the Kells had roamed Kearney. The hills far   
outside the city were lush and green, but they lay beyond Fiona’s line   
of vision. Within the town lay the sights most familiar to her; cold   
bricks, rusty gutters, and sooty windows. It was April sixteenth in the   
year of our lord nineteen and ninety five, and turning bank cars into   
smoldering heaps of ash had become a way of life for young Fiona. It   
was so routine an event, in fact, that she barely stopped to wonder if   
being a part of the IRA was worth the powder burns and political   
harassment. She focused on the weather as Sean spoke to her in his   
usual low burr about the importance of what they had done. It was a   
bad day for everyone else in Dublin; ugly and gray, and the orange   
flames leaping upward from the destroyed cars made a beautiful but   
hellish pattern against the chill as they doubled back and passed a side   
street near the sight of the bombing. It began to snow as Fiona   
smiled, fondling the device in her pocket as she and Sean drove calmly   
toward home. 

“…It’s as Mam said; even in the fiercest flames, the lotus can be   
planted,” Sean reminded her as she climbed out of the front seat of his   
Vic. Their usual flop house stood before them – a respectable   
apartment building with respectable loyalist renters. Later on they   
would walk to their grandmother’s home for a meal and a lie-down.

She shook her head, pocketing her sunglasses. “Ever the poet, Sean,”   
she sighed. 

“A poet in a world without romance,” he replied.

“You’re the one searching it out,” she replied blithely. “I see it all as it   
is, flat and true, and I’m glad for it.” Fi replied spiritedly. As they   
crossed the street and headed inside she gave his cheek a gentle peck. 

“The world’s gonna change soon, Tad; mark it well. Our people are   
standing on the threshold of a grand new society, a world where no   
Catholic will force a Protestant to take another beggar walk.”

“If we live to see it,” she replied airily. “Enough talk. I need to   
change my clothes; you brought the pants from Nan’s?”

“Aye,” he replied warily. “Fi, you’ve got to think of the future,” he   
said. “It’s a new world we’re helping to birth. Where will you be when   
it’s all through?”

Fiona shook her head as her brother entered the apartment and   
grinned. “On top of it, of course.”

~~~~~~~~

Miles away from Fiona’s humble house, a light aircraft touched down at   
the Dublin International Airport. It contained several men dressed   
incognito; the tallest bore dark hair and brown eyes; he also wore a   
friendly smile as his supervisor moved to hand him his casework.

“Fiona and Sean Glenanne,” declared Sam’s commanding officer,   
missing Sam’s hand entirely and slamming down a manila file onto the   
folding tray between them, “are a menace to the people of Ireland.”

Sam finished off his shot of whisky, spinning the glass between index   
finger and thumb before setting it down. “Menaces? Someone gave   
them an upgrade since my last briefing.” Sam picked up the folder   
and paged through its contents - he exhaled a slow whistle at the sight   
of the latest bit of carnage the siblings had left in their wake. “Six   
armored cars in one night?”

“They’re trying to tell us something.” 

“That they’re batshit insane?” Sam wondered, as his CO’s brow   
furrowed, eyes narrowing.

“That they’re in it for the cause, not the money. This is different from   
cracking the safe of every damn bank in Dublin. This is a deliberate   
affront to everything that makes European life good and decent.”

“So’s a big plate of bubbles and squeak,” Sam replied, closing the file   
and picking up Fiona’s FBI bulletin. He whistled at the mugshot pinned   
to the girl’s profile. 

“You like her?” 

Sam lifted his shoulders. “She doesn’t look too bad, for a hardened   
bank-robbing thug,” he replied.

“Would you be interested in getting to know her on a personal,   
intimate basis for the good of Amero-British relations?”

Sam raised a brow. It was weird as hell to hear those words coming   
out of the mouth of a superior officer. “You’ve got to give me some   
warning before you ask me that, Sir.”

“Commander Axe.” His name and rank were a sudden, humorless   
intonation that rang remorselessly from his superior’s lips.

“But you didn’t even buy me dinner first!” He straightened up at the   
man’s glare. “Sorry, Sir.”

“Fiona Glennane has been an enigma to the intelligence community for   
years. She’s not above using her wiles on any man who crosses her   
path. A man with your level of…”

“Experience?” 

His CO’s look was entirely humorless. “No, harlotry.” 

“Ouch,” Sam laughed. 

“A man with your level of experience might be the distraction we’ve   
been looking for. After all, you’re an expert in your field, Axe –   
muscle, charm, and stealth. She’ll try to eat you up and spit you out,   
and I frankly don’t care if she succeeds, as long as you stop the   
Glenannes from ruining the Queen’s visit.” His CO’s eyes took on a   
level of menace. “It’s going to be up to you to take her down. The   
question is, are you up to the task?”

Sam just grinned. “One little skinny Irish girl won’t take down Sam   
Axe,” he declared. “You can count on me.”

Those were words that Sam would come to rue.

~~~~~~~~ 

Fiona sipped her peach-infused tea as she rested her head against her   
grandmother’s dark blue kitchen counter. The atmosphere within the   
small flat was cozy and familial, and faintly she heard the television   
drone on as her grandmother played bridge with her father in the   
parlor. A drowsy wave of contentment washed over Fiona; the scent   
of gunpowder still haloed her face, clung to her hair and skin. There   
was a footie game on – Manchester United was going down to the All   
Blacks again. Vaguely, she heard Sean speaking to her, but rousing   
herself from her languor seemed an impossibility. Finally, she spoke:

“What?”

Sean glowered at her. “I said, do you want to swing round to   
Granny’s for a pint?”

“Are you buying?”

He sighed dramatically. “Nan and Pa are otherwise involved. If we   
want some warm grub in our bellies we’re going to have to scrounge   
it.”

“But are you buying?”

Sean glowered at her, digging into the pocket of his faded jeans. “I   
have enough for a round, but only one round. Pick up the slack, eh   
sis?”

“Don’t speak crossly to your sister,” their father Liam piped up, tossing   
his cards to the table. He scratched his stomach, pot belly poking out   
over the low band of his trousers, black suspenders barely successful   
in holding them up. His grin was triumphant. “A pair of queens,   
Mam!”

Meredith Glennane smiled, her clove cigarette glowing from between   
heavily-creased lips. She slapped down her own suites. “Two aces.”

Her son’s eyes widened. “You see where you get it from, Tad?” Liam   
asked her, using her family nickname as he picked up a handful of   
chips. “And where are you going?”

“Let the children play,” Meredith instructed, placing her cigarette in an   
amber-colored ashtray beside her stack. “They’re only young once in   
this life.”

“We’re headed to the pub, Da,” Fiona explained, kissing the top of her   
father’s head in a rare gesture of physical affection. It was something   
her mother used to do when she was alive, and the older man   
softened at the fond caress. “Would you like something warm?”

“We’re fine,” he declared. “Another run, Mam?”

“Yes,” she gathered the cards and began cutting them. Fiona watched   
her grandmother with frank admiration; there had been loose rumors   
floating around that she had once been a madam, and had run   
croupier parlors besides in the twenties. She had been lovely once;   
Fiona often found her aristocratic beauty compared to hers, and   
pictures lining the walls of the Glenanne family house reflected the   
resemblance up to her, flashing back the same green eyes and long,   
elegantly-formed limbs. Meredith was lovely even now, in that oddly   
sophisticated way an elderly woman possessed; her life consisted of   
soaps on the telly, her grandchildren, and her odd fondness for the   
Queen Mother which contrasted her fierce Irish nationalism. It was   
she who’d convinced Sean to join the IRA, who had enlisted Fiona and   
most of her brothers as well, even though her father stood on the   
border between the wars – as an atheist he didn’t give a tinker’s damn   
about the religious warfare tearing the town apart. Fiona tried to   
envision herself in her grandmother’s place and only shivered; cooped   
up in these walls, all alone for most of the day and without a lover   
nearby to call her own – no, Fi wouldn’t live that way, and she would   
fight with every tool in her possession to carve a life beyond Ireland   
for herself.

“Get your coat, Fiona,” complained Sean, as he opened the front door.   
“Your head’s up in the clouds today,” he added as they ducked out into   
the snowy night. 

“It’s the moon,” she declared. They could barely see the star hanging   
over them through the flurry of snow. “It’s put me in a mood.”

“The moon?” he snorted. “You’re the one turning romantic, sister.”

She frowned at him. “It’s not romantic. I just feel strange. I can’t   
figure out why.”

“Are you sick?” He put noticeable distance between them for a   
second.

“No. Excited.” Her eyebrow quirked up.

Sean nodded as they crossed the street, cutting the conversation   
short. Fiona rolled her eyes as they entered the establishment.   
There was warmth inside of the pub, and possibly a good meal. She   
would concentrate on that.

She never really understood what made her say yes that night – she’d   
been tired, had deserved the rest, and yet she found herself headed   
out the door with Sean at her side, headed to the warm non-partisan   
sanctity of Granny’s. It was a night that would change her forever,   
though she didn’t know it yet.

*** 

Sam hummed Van Morrison’s “Domino” to himself while he shaved,   
the cracked reflection of the hotel mirror informing him that it had   
been too long since his skin had seen hot water. As he carefully   
scraped his cheeks of foam and beard with a disposable razor, he tried   
to remember the last time he’d had a non-MRE meal and that, too,   
seemed as if it had been centuries ago. Even if he didn’t track down   
the Glenannes, he would at least gain something from the evening,   
and Sam patted his rumbling stomach. Applying some aftershave, he   
slung his “uniform” for the night over his head; a green cable-knit   
sweater. Then he donned a pair of jeans and black half-boots,   
carefully scuffed and worn down. With that done, Sam fixed his hair in   
the reflection. 

Then he rolled up his collar and smirked.

Game on.

*** 

Fiona dug into her stew with gusto as her brother spoke of the latest   
gossip with MacDougal, the red-haired, dark-eyed bartender and   
proprietor of the establishment. Sighing, she let the savory aroma   
wreathe her face as she dipped her spoon into the thick, beef-laden   
mélange. A combination of malt and carrots caressed her tongue as   
she ate as much as she could without bursting, moaning her   
contentment. Half the bowl had disappeared beneath her spoon   
before she raised her head and took another look at the barroom,   
balling up a piece of good raisin-filled bram-brack in her hand and   
eating it in large bites. 

The cracked red leather of the stool poked her fanny disconcertingly as   
she shifted against the surface. The bar was so ancient it could   
properly be called a taproom; the ceiling was made of hammered tin,   
and the walls of thickly-patterned dark leather. The booths were   
arranged close together and made of the darkest, heavily-stained   
wood, the same shade as the well-polished bar itself. Ancient oil   
paintings promoting long-forgotten brands of beer lined the walls   
behind the bar, with their oak shelves lined with countless bottles of   
liquor in shades of brown, green, black and blue. There was a jukebox   
in the corner blasting the latest Corrs song (Runaway – the damn tune   
had blanketed every single radio station from Dublin to Galway), and   
waitresses in green-striped aprons and white blouses flitted from the   
kitchen to the barroom, pencils tucked behind their ears, stagy laughs   
pouring out over the drunken rabble they were serving. They all   
knew well about the rifle MacDougal kept under the bar, and no one   
wanted a firefight tonight. 

All around them were the early evening regulars of Granny’s Pub and   
Eatery; old men in tweed caps and heavy woolen jackets having a kip   
while they chatted about the United game, young women with   
mousse-spiked hair trying to seduce the gaffer’s sons with laughter   
and winks; young men talking about politics around a dartboard,   
challenging each other to take a side in the endless war surrounding   
them – and occasionally retiring to the alley outside the pub for the   
sort of roughhousing MacDougal strictly forbid within the central   
taproom.

Fiona winced at the high-pitched cackling of the flirting women as she   
dug deeply into her grub. She could well be like them; her father   
knew nearly everyone in Ireland, thanks to his position as a   
newspaperman. Barkeeps, huntsmen, newspapermen, even posh   
types who saw themselves as a proper, modern, upwardly-mobile   
gentleman. There was a near constant pressure on her to marry a   
man and ‘do her mother proud’. Fiona had been courted by beaux   
before; a few boyfriends who had treated her to fine dinners and finer   
shoes, others who had lain with her in the backs of cars or the warmth   
of their flats. But none had laid claim to her heart. Anyone who   
danced close enough to Fiona’s flame knew that there was only room   
for one passion in her very soul – vengeance. 

She felt foolish in her red dress now, wishing she were wearing her   
typical fashionable-but-less-showy pub togs; a low cut and heavily   
spangled number in a bar filled with lonely men signaled the promise   
of flirtation when she was interested in none. Predictably, Seamus   
Tavish heard its siren call from across the room and sauntered up to   
greet her with a belly full of drink. 

She had known Seamus since they had shared a classroom together   
during o-levels, and had not been able to rid herself of him since. He   
was a creeping, oily fungus, but she tolerated him because he knew   
far too much about what she and Sean did for the IRA. “Having a kip,   
Tad?” he oozed.

“And why shouldn’t I?” she said, her teeth in a grit. She took another   
spoonful of stew and heavily chewed it.

“I heard there was another bomb explosion on the O’Connel today.   
They’re suspecting O’Neill’s gang’s behind it.”

Fiona’s brow twitched once; at twenty-five, she had a poker face most   
fifty-year-olds would envy. “And why are they saying that?”

“The incendiaries were the same kind used in the bombing of those   
armored cars in the Derry.” He smirked and ran a hand over her   
shoulder, flitting over the strap holding up her dress. “Everyone   
knows what your explosives look like, Fi…”

She knocked away his hand with lightening force. “I was shopping in   
the Dawneys all day for Finn’s birthday,” she said, glancing to her   
extreme left. Sean, predictably, did not turn to meet her eyes and   
continued instead his animated conversation with MacDougal. “I have   
the pinch marks on my bottom from the screener to prove it.”

“And I’ll see them someday, Fiona Glenanne. Mark my words…”   
Before he could do himself further injury, a voice cut through the din.

“Why don’t you leave the lady alone?” 

Both of them turned toward the voice that came from further up the   
bar; it belonged to a dark-haired man with large eyes and a lantern   
jaw, who sat erect with a mug of beer near the center portion of the u-  
shaped bar. His green sweater made her turn up her nose; a bloody   
tourist had ridden to her rescue - a tourist who chose to speak with a   
terrible false Irish accent, to boot.

Fiona winced as the stench of whiskey rolled over her. “No need to   
shout, mate. It’s a little domestic squabble between me and my lady.”

“She doesn’t look like your lady from here.” The man got up; erect,   
he was well over six feet, towering over both Fi and Seamus, and his   
body moved sleekly beneath his sweater. “Actually, it looks like she   
wants to beat the snot out of you. And she seems to be the kind of   
girl who’d follow up that kinda promise with action, so I suggest you   
scram.”

Seamus had backed down from a thousand playground fights such as   
this one; predictably, under the weight of this man’s gaze, he   
crumbled. “I’ll be seeing you at Finn’s party, Fi,” he leered. “I’m   
guessing you won’t be inviting Sir Lancelot to it as well.”

“Oh no,” Fiona said to his retreating back, turning to glare at the tall   
brunet who’d taken Sean’s place. “I’m sure he’ll take his own advice   
and scram,” she declared, eyeing the man over her beer.

He just smirked back, his dark eyes brimming with warmth. “A   
beautiful lady like you,” he said, “shouldn’t drink alone. Davis! A   
round for us, please!”

Fiona raised a brow at the man’s presumptuous nature – Davis   
MacDougal rarely enjoyed being addressed by his first name, but he   
obeyed the gentleman’s request and placed two fingers of fine Irish   
whiskey.

He downed it immediately, but Fiona smiled, took the tumbler of   
whiskey, and promptly reached over to the slop tray and poured the   
contents down. “I don’t drink with Yanks,” she declared. 

“Who told you I was a Yank?” he said, eyebrow rising.

“Your terrible accent,” she replied. “Most Irishmen know well enough   
to roll their R’s,” she smirked.

His mask melted into a smile. “Busted,” he said, his voice suddenly   
Midwestern in cadence. “My name’s Charles Finley, but pretty girls   
and smart men call me Charlie,” he gestured for another finger and   
the glass was immediately filled. “I’m from Michigan,” he explained.   
“And I’m here on vacation. Great Grandma Finley emigrated from   
Dublin over a hundred years ago, and she’s not doing well. I promised   
her I’d get a rock from the mother castle and bring it home to her   
before she passes.”

Fiona’s expression stayed hard. “You came to the middle of a warzone   
to trace your family blood?” she asked.

“What can I tell you? I’m a dedicated genealogist,” he replied over the   
whiskey. 

“What an incredible line of bullshit. And I suppose you’re expecting   
me to swallow it?” she rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t just dug up from the   
potato patch yesterday, Mister Finley.” She spat out the name in a   
mocking tone.

“I wouldn’t dream of thinking that,” Charlie said, watching her reaction   
with undisguised amusement. 

Fiona’s temper flared up. “Did you ride to my rescue just to have the   
pleasure of teasin’ me? Or did you just want to stare?”

“That’d be a great way to pass the time, but nope, that’s not it at all.”   
He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a tiny scrap of black   
wool. Fiona recognized the remnant of a mask of a soldier for the   
cause and immediately sat in silence. “This was my great-  
grandfather’s,” he explained. “Paul Finley was one of the charter   
members of Dublin’s branch of the IRA. Look it up in the charters –   
I’ve got posters and agreements and documents going back over a   
hundred years to the first uprising in sixteen hundred.”

Fiona’s heart leapt into her throat and she swallowed it down with a   
gulp of beer. “I can tell you’re Irish. You’ve a great fondness for   
blarney.” 

“You’re right about one thing. I love Ireland…and I might have a bit of   
fondness for blarney. But keep that under your hat.”

“What do you want?” She whispered.

“In,” he declared. Fiona’s mouth dropped open and her cheeks blazed   
red before Charles quickly corrected himself. “My family’s been IRA   
since I was in orange and green striped diapers. Now, a non-native   
like me is going to need a little extra push getting in – but with some   
sponsorship from a proud member like yourself….”

“I’m not IRA,” she hissed.

“Liar.” She wheeled around and struck him right in the jaw with her   
balled-up, bread-filled fist, uncaring about the shock of pain that raced   
up her arm. Charlie reeled back and clutched himself, but quickly   
recovered his composure. “Knew you’d hit hard,” he declared.

“Why would you even think I was IRA?” she growled.

“Because you turned red the very minute I suggested it,” replied   
Charlie. “If you didn’t care, you would’ve kept up the coy act.” 

Fiona felt a humiliating wave of defeat wash over her as she sucked in   
a deep breath. Jesus, the man was persistent. “Why would you   
want to put yourself in danger for a country you don’t call home?”

“Because,” he said, “some things are important enough to die for.”

Fiona went very still at his words. Slowly, she lifted her head to look   
into his eyes. They radiated warmth and sincerity - she steeled herself   
against it - this was no time to go soft, not now.

Instead, she slammed down her mug of beer. “I’ll retrieve you past   
seven at the abandoned school on Grafton.”

Confusion stained his features. “That’s all the way across town.”

“Sore feet are a small price to pay for independence, aren’t they?”

He smiled at her then – a real smile, with bright, shining eyes and a   
flash of diamond-white teeth. “Right. I’ll see you then.”

She shook her head at his heedlessness, at her own, as she faced back   
toward the bar. MacDougal slapped it with his rag to get her   
attention.

“Another bowl, Tad?” MacDougal gave her a smile, flashing two   
blackened-out front teeth. 

“Why not?” Fiona smiled. “One more for the conquering hero, and   
another beer for Sean.” 

MacDougal’s merry features screwed up. “I think he’s busy, lass.”

He jerked a meaty thumb toward the jukebox, where Sean hung   
heavily on the arm of a brunette in a low-cut violet dress, dripping   
mugsweat on her bare flesh. Fi turned up her pert little nose at the   
scene. “Aye,” she said. “One more for me then, and a bit more   
bread. I’ll need to keep my energy up.”

“Do you have plans?”

“I’m meeting someone later.”

He smirked his wicked grin. “Ahh, I knew you wouldn’t be able to   
resist him. That’s a persistent suitor you have, Tad.” 

“Suitor?” she wondered.

“He came in from the cold to look for you,” he said. “Told me his   
grandmam was a Finley, and his grandpapa IRA back to the days   
before the Troubles.”

She nodded. “Do you think it’s a load of malarkey?” 

He shrugged. “Who’s to say? If he wants to get himself killed running   
over hill and dale for the grand cause, let him.” MacDougal had   
attended too many funerals for too many fine young people in his   
time; Fiona knew him well enough to know that his surface patina of   
joy masked a deep, thoughtfully troubled man. 

Fiona nodded. “This city. How I’ve grown to hate it.”

“Bah. You’re as Irish as your brothers, as you mother, God rest her   
soul, and your da. There’s peat moss and Connemara marble running   
through those veins of yours.”

She smiled. “Always did have the gift of blarney,” she sighed. 

“It’s not blarney, but plain truth.” He handed her another bowl of stew   
fresh from the kitchen. “You are Ireland, Fiona Maeve Glenanne. And   
no matter where you roam, Irish you will always be.” 

~~~~~~~~

It was sometime past midnight when the pub’s doors swung closed for   
last call; Fiona’s full belly cut down on the warming effect of alcohol on   
her body, and she shuddered as she walked out onto the street.

It was an hour before curfew; tanks clattered up and down the cobbled   
streets as they monitored the continuous flux of people to their   
homes. In the chilly air Fi shivered and cursed as she snuck down the   
back roads, mindful of the patrols, knowing through years of   
experience how to get back and forth between the buildings without   
being seen. It didn’t take her long to make her way to the   
abandoned school, for her to find her way to the back door she’d told   
Charles Finley about. Sitting in the doorway, she rubbed her arms and   
wished she’d begged a bottle of whiskey from MacDougal.

She waited for a half-hour in the freezing cold before he showed up,   
shivering, white flakes dotting his dark hair. “I see they don’t believe   
in punctuality in America,” she replied tartly, looking him up and   
down.

“It’s not my American punctuality that’s the problem,” he replied. “It’s   
your Irish roads. I’m telling you; whoever built this town doesn’t know   
how to pave a throughway to save their life.” 

She raised an eyebrow at him. The man wanted to talk about the   
roads now, did he? “Is that any way to talk about the mother   
country?”

“I believe in the cause, not the road system.” Charles glanced at their   
surroundings. “You meet here?”

Fiona turned around, trotting up the stone stairway and slipping open   
the heavier back door. Inside, the eerily abandoned hallways were lit   
by emergency lighting, which made the area look like a subterranean   
bomb shelter. The scent of ancient cleaning products filled the air as   
he followed Fiona down an endless entryway, rights and lefts taken   
with quick turns of the heel as he followed her down a long parquet   
stairway until they finally reached the basement. Fi took a quick look   
around in the opaque semi-darkness; large crates lay open   
everywhere, spilling out electronic equipment. It looked like a science   
lab with a budget gone amok. 

Shrugging, Fiona went about the room and started pulling open crates.   
Charles’ eyes widened as he stepped over the threshold and into the   
light to see her payload. Spilling out across the floor and onto various   
desks was a wide arsenal of weaponry; M-60s, assault rifles, grenades,   
and large bricks of C4 sat hidden in innocent-looking boxes and crates. 

She cocked one of the assault rifles. “My wanker of a brother took one   
of the best rifles I had, but this is the rest of it.”

“Sean?”

“Maybe. But he’s only one of my brothers.” She paused, pretending   
to take the time to recall their names. “There’s Patrick, Finn, Sean,   
Andrew and Robert. “ 

He raised an eyebrow, but grinned. “No other girls?”

Her eyes turned dark. “Yes. A long time ago.” He waited and   
watched her, but Fiona gave him a contemptuous glare in return. “Did   
you expect me to snivel on your shoulder like a bleeding milksop?”

He smirked. “You seem more likely to kill the whole cow than milk   
anything.” She didn’t make note of his faux pas, instead playing with   
the trigger on one of the m-60’s. “I’m not gonna press you for a   
private sob story, sister. You own your own words – anything you   
want to share you share on your own terms.”

“I don’t want to ‘share’ anything with you,” she said, putting down the   
rifle and picking up a small handgun. Loading a bullet into the   
chamber, she said, “I’m going to teach you how to aim a rifle and let   
you play getaway driver for our next heist, then you’ll be on the next   
plane to America with a clean conscience and a nice story to tell daddy   
about your time in the mother country.”

He winced, and for a moment Fiona felt sorry for wounding him.   
“You’re right.” He listened in silence to the mechanic clink of the   
bullets entering the chamber. “My my, higher learning’s changed a   
hell of a lot since I was a kid,” he remarked, apropos of nothing. 

“They don’t teach rifle maintenance in Irish schools,” she said, voice   
brittle. 

“They do now,” he pointed out. 

“Not when I took my courses here,” she growled. At Charles’   
surprised expression, she continued, “did you think I was spat onto   
Drury Lane from the head of Zeus?” 

He gave her another grin. “Maybe Athena.”

Now he had impressed her. “You read Roman mythology?” 

He laughed. “In second grade. Everyone in America gets to learn   
about them for history. We strap on bedsheets and make terrible   
souvlaki and learn how to play recorders. I can still fake a mean   
Three Blind Mice.” He sat back as she finished loading the weapon.   
“You didn’t seem like the mything kind.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “I don’t believe in fairy stories. I just read a   
lot.” She held out the handgun and pointed to a makeshift target   
made of Styrofoam duct-taped to the wall. “The silencer’s on, but   
you’d better be quick about it.”

Charles took the gun with confidence. “Sweetheart, the Finleys have   
been in weapons for generations. But we don’t fire these puny little   
things; we shoot big American rifles.” Pausing, Charles picked up the   
weapon, weighed it in his palms, and slowly took aim. Predictably, his   
first bullet arced far from the target and burrowed into the ugly green   
mortar beside it.

She nearly let out a Peter Pannish crow of delight at his misfortune.   
Charles stood back and squinted in confusion at the target, and she   
quickly stepped in to sort things out. “You need to aim before you   
squeeze,” she scolded, sidling up behind him. He was nearly twice her   
height, with an unusual stockiness to his chest; she had to stand on   
her tiptoes and get her right arm up around him. “Hold it steadier –   
even out your stance a bit.” Her lips were incredibly close to his ear,   
and she didn’t quite understand why she was stricken by the urge to   
lean in a little closer, feeling the tickle of his dark hair against her lips   
and the heat of his skin drafting welcomingly up from his body.

“Fire,” she demanded. He squeezed the trigger.

The bullet penetrated the very heart of the target, spilling styrafoam   
scrap everywhere.

Charlie blinked at the mess they’d made, but Fiona’s lips tipped   
upward. “It will get easier, once you’ve figured out how to shoot on   
the fly.” She locked and loaded her weapon. “And that’s a lot of fun.”

His eyebrow arched comically. “You’re not the average gun-runner,   
are you?”

“I’m not the average anyone,” Fiona declared proudly. “Sean and I   
make most of our petty cash from selling weapons, but the real   
money’s in robbing the til.” She smirked. “The bombings are just for   
fun.”

He suddenly seemed very wary of her. Taking a step back, he   
lowered the gun. “A pretty girl like you should have a career and   
house of her own, instead of running around out here at night with   
strange men.”

She flashed him a grin; sharklike, sharp-toothed. “That’s one of the   
biggest thrills to be had for a girl stuck in this country without a pot to   
piss in.” Her hand slid up his arm, slowly, a tease even through the   
amount of clothing they both wore. “A strange, tall man I don’t know.   
A sweet girl you’ve never seen before. And two seconds alone in a   
warm place during a winter storm.” She stepped impossibly closer to   
him. “You don’t really know me, and I don’t understand you. We   
only know that Ireland runs through our veins like a river, and that’s   
the only vital thing we’ll ever need.”

He gently pushed her back. “I need to get you home before you get in   
over your head.”

She snickered. “I’m not a babe, Charles. Just the sort of girl who’s   
been swigging whiskey since she was a tot. And I’m freer than Ireland   
will ever be.”

He swayed on his feet, brimming with macho energy. “You talk a huge   
game, Glenanne,” he said evenly, “but can you back it up?” 

With her eyes ablaze, Fiona seized a gun from the stockpile before   
them, locked in on her target, pulled the trigger, and pierced it in a   
single, effortless shot. His eyebrow ratcheted up to an impossible   
height halfway up his hairline. “Forget all the blarney you’ve been   
spilling; teach me how to do that.”

“Fine. I’ll teach you to do it. But you’re pitching in with the heist   
before you leave.” She glanced downward.

Charles picked up his rifle and squinted through the sight again. “As   
much as I want to help the cause, why does such a tough, well-formed   
little unit like yours need help from some wet-behind-the-ears   
American tenderfoot like me?”

She puffed a lock of hair from her eyes. “I’ve tucked ten friends away   
in pine boxes over the last year,” she confessed. “We need men like   
you on our side– able ones who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.” 

He winced, “Hard as it is to believe, I’ve been there.” She raised an   
eyebrow. “My brother served in Iraq and Bosnia.” 

Fiona listened to him, impassive. “Your family served the American   
army, but your loyalty’s to the motherland?”

He shrugged. “I’m from two different worlds, Fi…do you mind me   
calling you Fi? Not wholly Irish, not completely American. I know you   
don’t know what it’s like to be that lonely in your own house…”

“I might know better than you think,” she turned toward the target   
again. “Come on. You need to know your paces.”

He improved steadily over a half-hours time, really getting into the   
swing of the motion. Eventually he lost his jacket, intensely staring   
through the sight, sweating, his concentration so entirely focused upon   
the target that she could feel the heat and the intensity of him within   
her own form.

An hour later, she rested her hand upon the gun barrel, wincing at the   
heat that seared her. “It’s near daybreak.” She informed him. “The   
patrols start thinning out near four. If we start out now, they won’t   
catch us.”

He glanced up. “Okay.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and   
gathered his jacket. “So, can I walk you home?”

She gave him a gamine look of amusement as he pulled the jacket on.   
“If you want to.” She gave him a toss of her head as they hid the   
equipment and he put his jacket back on.

“Do you think it’s safe?” He asked, as they climbed the stairs. 

A clatter sent their eyes up the stairwell, and he pushed her   
protectively behind him. “Saint’s blood!” she pointed at the familiar   
form of his brother, shoving Charles in return. “It’s only Sean.”

A very drunk Sean, replacing her at guard duty for their weapons   
cache. “Hey Fi..” he smirked. “Finley. How’s your sweetheart?”

Fiona bristled. “Now Sean, you know I don’t have a sweetheart,” she   
replied evenly. “I don’t have the time of day for one, and Father   
wouldn’t approve.”

Sean swayed against the building. “Aye, and he approved of your   
fooling with MacGreggor in the car behind the bar.”

“Sean,” she growled. He was dependable, loyal, forthwith in most   
cases; damn him, it was no time for him to go to pieces and end up in   
his cups! His usual strong capability was failing him under the weight   
of it all. 

“Take your hands off me, Fiona,” he said, slipping by them. “We’ve   
got one last day before it’s all over.” He walked downstairs, back into   
the cellar.

Charles didn’t ask her what he was talking about until they were both   
safely outside. Fiona sighed. “He’s strong, usually – it’s the pressure   
that’s hurting him. Sean is one of Sian’s trusted men, and our last job   
is coming up. If everything goes right, Sean will have enough money   
to go on his merry way, and the home branch of the IRA will have its   
funding through the next year. He’s only nervous because it’s   
scheduled to happen the same week as the Queen’s visit.” He took off   
and tucked his jacket around her, making Fiona smirk wryly.

Charles’ eyes had widened when she’d mentioned the queen. “Sounds   
major. And risky. Are you sure you wanna blow the whole world up   
when the Queen’s close by?”

“Aye,” she said. “That’s why I need you in tip-top shape. Why we   
need a third man at the wheel.”

He watched her expression in the glow of the halogen street lamps.   
“You and Sean aren’t even Provisional,” he realized. “You’re an   
independent outlet. You really do believe, don’t you?”’

“In Bloody Ireland? Not on your life. What difference does it make if   
we’re free? The British will tax us to death on imports and we’ll never   
get out from under.” She kicked a stray pebble. “But I believe in   
revenge. A British sniper took my blood. Spilling theirs in turn brings   
me pleasure.”

Charles didn’t ask the inevitable question, but his eyes remained   
sympathetic. Together, they walked in silence until Fiona halted at the   
foot of a brownstone.

“This is where I stay,” she informed him. “I would ask you in, but it’s   
a frightful mess. Shell casings everywhere.”

He gave her an awkward laugh. “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

She watched him, her eyes steady. “At the pub?”

“At the pub. I’m going to be having lunch there. Maybe we’ll have   
time to squeeze off a few more rounds.” Then he reached for her   
hand, gently pecked it, and released it. “See you.” The tone was   
quite serious, self-assured and fearless. 

She stood in the street and watched him leave, bright white   
snowflakes peppering her copper hair, his dark green jacket still   
draped over her slim shoulders. 

~~~~~~~~

Sam sighed heavily as he entered his hotel room, his feet barking from   
the long pedestrian journey he’d taken. The phone was already   
ringing as he picked it up. “Hello?”

“Target acquired?” his handler asked.

Sam laughed, cracking open the mini-bar and pulling out a bottle of   
brew. “Acquired, locked and loaded. She thinks I’m a greenhorn with   
Army blood, running around trying to get myself killed for the   
Republic.” 

“Nice choice of cover. Anything about their plans?”

“Only that they’re putting together a huge heist sometime soon. No   
details on which bank, but it’ll be enough to get Sean out of the   
Cause’s way. It’s probably a pride thing for him; we talked for awhile   
tonight, and he’s a man of the Republic. But the sister, Fiona, she   
sounds like she could give a shit about Mother Ireland. Said it was   
more personal for her.” Sam took a moment to quaff his beer. “She   
talked a lot about her family. Two and two keeps coming together to   
make revenge soup.”

“You need to pay better attention, Axe. The government’s paying you   
good money to keep the Glenannes away from the Queen.” He   
sounded like a schoolteacher. Sam – who was always serious when it   
came to his jobs – automatically straightened his back. It wasn’t at   
all like palling around with his equals back on the jet here.

“Sir, you should know I’m doing everything within my power to get   
into their faculties. I’ve already located their weapons cache.” He   
gave his CO the address. “To be fair, sir, it’s only been one day. Give   
me another week and I’ll know all there is to be known about Fiona   
Glenanne.”

“There’s nothing fair about espionage, Axe. These aren’t your cronies   
from the SEALs you’re dealing with now – it goes higher than you   
could ever imagine.”

Sam gulped. He wasn’t afraid of much, and he could be damn cocky   
when he wanted to be, but the threat of looming demotion or worse,   
imprisonment, made his palms sweat. Until Amanda finally married   
Mack he was still up to his balls in hock for alimony; he needed his   
Navy pay to keep him out of jail. “I’ll do my duty, sir. Before the   
Glenannes crack their next safe I’ll have them neutralized.” 

“Just get the goods. That’s all we want, sailor.” 

“I’ve got Lady Liberty’s back.” Sam had, and Sam always would, put   
America before anything else. It was what had cost him his marriage   
to Amanda, what had cost him his first wife twenty years back. Sam   
wasn’t a workaholic, but a patriot, true-blue. He loved his homeland   
and believed in it, and that was his boon and his downfall.

He hung up the phone and flopped onto the bed, deciding to get as   
much sleep as he could. He had a breakfast date with Sean Glenanne   
in the morning, and needed to appear fresh-faced for it.

~~~~~~~~

When Fiona next burst into MacDougal’s, she was surprised to find   
Sean and Charles sharing a booth and steaming plates of apple   
crumble. Their laughter obstructed the latest episode of Eastenders   
and the low-pitched din of the mid-afternoon crowd as they clicked   
glasses and chatted.

Her brother noticed her quickly and gave her a grin. “Hello, Fi,” Sean   
said, scooting against the leather booth to make room for her rump.   
“Your sweetheart beat you to the bar.”

She eyed Charles, whose honey-brown eyes had a warm sheen that   
didn’t quite suggest drunkenness. Neither did Sean’s, she noticed,   
with some relief – whatever conflict of conscious he’d been struggling   
with the night before had seemingly disappeared. So had Charles’   
temporary fit of weaponry discomfort, apparently – he was admiring   
Sean’s Walther. Passing it quickly back to its rightful owner, who kept   
it carefully out of sight of the other patrons, Charles toasted her with   
his glass of cola. “Sean’s been telling me about your brother Finn.” 

Sean nodded eagerly. “I gave Charlie an invitation. We have some   
time to get him in after I get off at the factory,” he informed Fi.   
“Enough time to run drills. I need you to get your hands on the   
blueprints and meet me at Gran’s house.” 

Fiona’s head bobbed once. “If you boys don’t mind, I think I’ll treat   
myself to a late breakfast.”

“Take your time.” To her irritation, while she enjoyed a great   
breakfast of porridge and apples the men talked about politics over her   
head as if she weren’t there. She ‘accidentally’ kicked Sean in the   
ankle with the tip of her Blahniks, which finally stirred the men from   
their two-way conversation.

“I’ve got to go,” Sean said. “Or I’ll be late. The bossman doesn’t like   
stragglers.” He gave her a mock bow and poured her a final cup of   
coffee. “I’ll see you for the party, Fi.”

She mock-toasted him, turning toward Charles as the door jangled its   
familiar tune behind her. “I suppose I’ll have to teach you to parkour   
today.” She took off and tossed his light jacket at him. “Thank you   
for letting me borrow that little rag.”

Charles’ eyes widened at the notion, drawing a loud, merry laugh from   
Fiona – he caught the jacket and pulled it on. “Come along,” she   
demanded, paying the check and grabbing her coat. “I have some   
work to do. Do you mind coming with me?”

It was more of a statement than a question, but Charles nodded.   
“Where’re you taking me?” 

“To the city planner’s.”

Charles stared at her. “You’re going to show me how you get the   
blueprints for your heists? How the hell are you gonna do that?” He   
whispered it, lingering too close to her ear. 

She shivered and pushed him away, his chin brushing her neck; he   
was impossibly tall, even when she wore her heels. “I have my ways,”   
she said. With him beside her at every turn, she ducked into an   
alleyway. It was one she knew well from her ill-spent childhood -   
finding a soaped-over back window, she leaned against it and started   
tucking her hair back up into a bun and fastening it with hairpins. 

Charles stood aside and watched her, as if he’d never seen a woman   
prepare herself for a business meeting. “This might make me sound   
like a jerk, but …don’t you have a job?” Charles asked.

Fiona’s lips tilted upward. “I help Sean at the factory, sometimes. Da   
works at the newspaper, but he doesn’t care for my delight in   
blarney.”

He glanced at her fancy overcoat, the high black satin pumps. “And all   
of that fuels your Ralph Lauren fetish?”

“I do favors,” she declared, pulling out a pair of wire-rimmed   
spectacles. Adding a clutch purse and a clipboard gathered from its   
hiding place behind a dumpster, she checked herself in a tiny hand   
mirror. “If someone needs help, I help them.” She straightened her   
collar. 

“Sorry for busting your bubble, Fi, but you don’t sound like a Mother   
Theresa type.”

“Oh, tush. Do I look all right?”

His grin carried an unmistakable sense of flirtation. “Like a thousand   
bucks.”

“Flatterer,” she said, tucking the clipboard close to her chest. “I’ve got   
something to do. Be a dear and don’t get into mischief while I’m   
gone.”

“Yes’m,” he said, sarcastically, and she felt his eyes caressing her as   
she headed up the street and six blocks down to the town hall.

It took Fiona four minutes to bluff her way inside with a fake ID and   
get an appointment with the head record keeper. Sometimes it paid   
to be the daughter of a newsman; because of her Da she knew where   
the organizations’ vulnerabilities lie; the bank went through loads of   
secretaries who couldn’t handle the stress of the country’s strife and   
keep their boss’ offices opperating under the constant threat of death   
via bombing. And so Fiona posed as a secretary on an errand for her   
boss; her word, unchallenged, admitted her to the building in general   
and the building at large. Soon she rested outside the office, tapping   
her heel against the floor, waiting nervously.

The head of the records department approached her in a flurry, his   
eyes bright but filled with imperious concern. “Miss Glenanne, did you   
say your name was then?”

She nodded her head. “Aye, Miss Mary Glenanne.” She felt guilty to   
be using her mother’s name, but knew she had to, that it was the only   
way to lay her hands on the documents her brother needed.

The man stared her down. “I’ve spent the past ten minutes trying to   
track down your credentials. The head of security at National says he   
didn’t send his secretary here.” 

“I’m new,” she said without hesitation. “I didn’t get the request from   
him; I got it from the man who held the job before him.” Her voice   
shook dramatically. “He was a fine man, Stuart Winston. The top of   
the branch, until the head of the bank forced him out of a job.”   
Melodramatically, she added, “he was worth twelve of Duncan LeFitte!”

She buried her face in her hands and gave a series of chest-heaving   
sobs; she felt him place an awkward hand on her shoulder. “Please,   
Miss, don’t make a scene.”

“I’m only trying to do what Duncan asked me to do,” she sniffled.   
“Isn’t that my right? I break my back for the company, I put in my   
overtime like everyone else, and what do I get? Questioned and   
mistreated…”

He handed her a Kleenex, and she faked a loud, snotty blow. “Well,   
there’s a simple way for us to clear this up,” he said. “I’ll pick up the   
line and talk to your former manager. Once he proves he’s given you   
clearance, I’ll let you inside. Do you have his number?”

Fiona barely held on to her poker face; she knew that when that man   
picked up his phone, her story would disintegrate. She’d made such a   
big stink about the greatness of her invisible boss – would it be logical   
for her to declare that she didn’t know his number? As she opened her   
mouth to correct herself, a man walked up the hallway, well-polished   
shoes clicking against the floor.

“Miss Glenanne,” said Charles Finley, his collar turned up and a napkin   
tucked into his front pocket, “well, how have you been?” She raised a   
brow at his passable Mancsian accent, but immediately plunged   
forward and started to spin her tale of woe. 

“Mister Finley! I’m so glad to see you! Mister…”

The other man stared at them both blankly. “Gordon…”

“Mister Gordon wanted proof that you’d ask me to pull the blueprints   
for Dublin National. He thinks I’m lying to him….”

Charles laughed. “Lie? Why, this little sweetheart doesn’t have a lying   
bone in her body!”

“You see,” she continued, “There was a bit of a mix-up downtown;   
someone must have forgotten to clear the orders you authorized. He   
spoke to my new boss, and he doesn’t have any record of what you   
asked for on his docket.”

Chuck’s features knit into a dark frown. “Did you tell them that I   
needed those plans? That structural integrity of that bank and the   
very safety of every person who walks into it might be at risk?”

Fiona put on the water works. “YES. But he wouldn’t believe me.”

“But,” Gordon sputtered. “But miss, I didn’t mean…”

“One more nail in the coffin for ol’ Chuck. I came here to file for   
unemployment,” he frowned. “But you know what it feels like to have   
the man just ruin your life, don’t you, Mac? You work your life away,   
then you wake up at forty with a pink-slip and no prospects outside   
the bank.”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, I….”

Charles clapped him on the back. “See, you and me, we’re cut from   
the same cloth. We understand each other. So doing a little favor for   
Miss Glenanne on my account wouldn’t be a big deal, would it? It’s not   
her fault her bosses are idiots, and the security firm will have her ass   
if she doesn’t produce.”

Gordon wiped sweat from the tip of his overgrown red beard. “Well,   
I…suppose not. But I don’t think I’m legally allowed to…”

Charles gave the man another smarmy grin. “Well, then, don’t tell   
your boss. Just keep it a secret between the three of us,” he   
insinuated. “The only folks who have to know are your HR   
representative, and I’m sure he doesn’t care about paper-pushers like   
us.”

Fiona gave Charles a quick, approving look that would be easily   
mistaken by anyone watching as look of deep admiration; she was in   
fact impressed with his ability to talk circles around his opponent. 

Gordon sighed, and reached for his belt loop. “All right. I’ll let you   
into the records. Plans should be in the third cabinet.” 

Charles gave the man a dangerous grin. “I knew you’d come around.”   
He slapped the guy on the back. “You’ve made an otherwise crappy   
week golden.”

Gordon shuffled them through a series of wooden, thickly-enforced   
glass-windowed doors, all carefully numbered. They followed behind,   
remaining silent and watchful. Gordon headed to the right case,   
unlocked it with a twist of his wrist, and then pulled open the file   
cabinet. Fiona said nothing as he grabbed the file and pulled it free,   
then headed to the photocopier. He quickly made two oversized   
reproductions of the blueprints, and then handed each sized version to   
her.

“I hope this keeps your job,” he smiled. 

“So do I,” Fiona smiled. “Thank you.”

“Thanks,” Charles echoed. Without taking the time to coordinate their   
exit, Sam left through the right side of the building, Fiona the left.   
As she strode out in search of Charles a few moments later, she felt   
breezily confident and worthy of the pride of her clan.

“Was I Oscar-worthy?”

She leapt and smacked him with her clipboard. “How did you sneak   
up on me?”

He rubbed his jaw and smirked, answering her with a question. “How   
did you like my performance?”

“You have a lot of experience playing hide and seek, don’t you?”

“I learned well. We Americans have to pass the long, snowy winters   
any way we can,” he said breezily. 

She wheeled around, pulling the pins from her hair, and he eyed her   
glowing locks in an amused, possessive fashion. “Why did you follow   
me inside?”

“Because you were taking too long.” His sudden animation made   
Fiona wary, but he walked on, ignoring her. “I thought you’d gotten   
your pretty head wrecked by a copper.”

“Oh now – I have a pretty head?” she smirked.

“Yep. One day, I’ll find out if you give it.” 

“Well, aren’t you presumptuous?” she wondered, flouncing beside him.   
She was in high spirits now, following him blindly down the alley. “You   
were brave, though, to follow me.”

He chuckled. “Only because I knew Sean would kick my ass if I didn’t   
bring you back.” He stopped suddenly and frowned at the sight of the   
unfamiliar alleyway. “Where are we going now?”

“The hide-out.” She declared. “If the bastard was suspicious and   
called the coppers, they’d try to find my Gram’s.” 

“Are you crazy?” he hissed, grabbing her arm. “There are patrols all   
over the O’Connel during the day! You were worried as all hell about   
them last night, and now you’re willing to run right into their trap   
because you’re rattled?”

The blow she gave him could have, with more force, dislocated his   
shoulder – Fiona deliberately held back, a fact only she seemed to   
know - in return he reflexively sucked in a breath and pulled away   
from Fiona. “I am calm!” 

“Tell that to my bruise,” he said, working his shoulder. “Look, why   
don’t we take a walk, soak in a little local color? We need to   
disappear, and I bet there are places in this town only a gal like you   
knows about.”

“Aye,” she said, and they took several shortcuts through narrow back   
alleyways until they reached a series of small, brightly-lit cafes. “They   
make rusks here that melt in your mouth.” 

Fiona smiled and held out her palm, clearly expecting Charles to pay   
for their lunch. He sighed and dug into his pocket, filling her palm   
with shillings. “Get us some coffee, too.”

She waited briefly in queue, looking at all of the brightly-decorated   
pastries and listening to the hurly-burly of the crowd, until, finally, she   
returned with two buttered rusks. And a cup of tea.

“I thought I…”

She smiled. “You should know better than to order me around,” she   
replied, keeping a brisk pace up the street. She took a long drink from   
the Styrofoam cup and held it up for Charles to drink from. He did so,   
taking in huge bites of his own rusk. 

“So, where are we?” he asked around his mouth full of rusk.

“Near the center of town. There are checkpoints to the west and   
east…” she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him through an   
apothecary store, which shared a back door with a liquor shop – both   
were lit and heavily festooned for the Queen’s appearence. “But not   
the south.” They walked a long cobblestone pathway, damp with   
snow, out of town, down by the costal gloom of the port.

She froze before a brick wall, painted in the blacks and reds of the   
IRA, depicting a soldier dressed in the uniform before a scroll of the   
names of people murdered in the conflict.

Fiona rested a palm against it, her eyes far away as she traced the   
letters of a name etched into the brick, near the bottom of the list,   
fresh and carefully written. ‘Claire Glenanne’.

But he had seen the name too. “I get it now,” Charlie said suddenly,   
his voice kind. “Personal.”

Her head was low; she waited, steadying herself, before looking him in   
the eyes. “We were out shopping for Mam’s Mother’s Day gift,” she   
spoke, her mind years and miles away from Charles and the entrance   
gate to Dublin. “We were just two little colleens on a lark, minding   
our own business, running from one store to the next. Then a gun   
fired. And another. I pushed Claire up against the wall to keep her   
safe, but I wasn’t fast enough. A stray bullet took her in the firefight,”   
she said, low-voiced. He reached out and ran his palm along her   
shoulders, a very slow, gentle motion. It was as if he were trying to   
calm an upset child; Fiona felt worthless and weak but calmed with   
instinctive concert to his touch. “They might as well have killed my Ma   
that day; she never recovered. We put her in the city plot beside   
Claire three days later. The rest of us stood behind, growing in   
different directions. Pa drank, Finn went to university in Cambridge,   
Robert traveled to Paris, Andrew became a store clerk. And I grew   
angry. Da tried to reckon my reaction, but he didn’t understand why I   
took to so well to spending long hours at Granny’s with Sean. He   
bloody well should have. Destiny hates the Glenanne clan – I just   
want to even the odds a bit.” 

Charles kept rubbing her back; still a soothing pillar behind her. “It   
doesn’t hate you that much.”

She laughed her hollow laugh. “We’re the only unlucky bastards in   
town to have been dragged through every blight and famine this   
cursed place has been through. If we were a sensible lot, my   
granddad would have left the bleeding republic on the closest tuna   
boat after the first wave of dead bodies hit the coast.”

He shuffled his shoulders, trying to come up with a good reason for   
her existence. “Well, then you wouldn’t have met me.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “And that’s a good thing?”

“It’s a very good thing,” he insisted. “Don’t you think I’m here for a   
reason?”

“Your own cause, Charles,” she replied, mumbling into her soaked   
sleeve. Claire’s name blurred before her eyes. “A cause I don’t   
believe in.” She’d never told anyone flat-out that she didn’t truly care   
about Irish Independence – had only hinted at it obliquely to Sean,   
who had that orange and green blood MacDougal spoke of flowing   
through his veins and roundly ignored anything she said against the   
struggle for independence.

“Ireland’s why I came. But it sure as hell isn’t why I’m sticking   
around.” His hand made a gentle path from her collarbone to her   
shoulder, and she flinched, unable to decide if she should answer him   
physically, answer him at all. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t care   
anymore. Maybe you could make me believe in something much   
bigger.”

She looked back into his eyes and a laughed. “You sound like an extra   
from EastEnders!”

He immediately went into Romeo mode. “Has anyone ever told you   
how beautiful you are, when you laugh, Fiona?”

She rolled her eyes. “Many men. And they all wanted a look at my   
fanny.”

He frowned at her. “I’m not talking about your ass, sugar. I’m just   
trying to say I’m attracted to you. Drawn.” 

She rolled her eyes. “Not what I meant…Drawn?” he nodded, tried to   
look bashful, and she smirked at him. Fiona had danced this waltz   
before; she knew which weapons to use. “Drawn tight enough to risk   
leaving an American bastard in me?” 

He raised an eyebrow. “You think I wouldn’t protect you?”

She laughed in his face. “You’re looking for a quick tumble with a   
stranger you’ll never see again. Why would you care about protecting   
me?”

He gestured wildly with his open hands. “What about what happened   
back at the bank? Doesn’t that prove how much I like you? That I   
might wanna stick around after all of this craziness is over?”

Fiona hesitated at the suggestion, but finally shook her head. “There’s   
no protection from the game we’re playing, Charles. You know that   
life’s a risk as much as I do.”

“I like risk.”

She smiled. “So do I. But if we take another step, one of us might   
lose the game.”

“Ah, but if you’re willing sweetheart, so am I.” He ran a hand through   
her messy hair, his gaze centered squarely upon hers, eyes dark and   
large as they scanned her face. She stood on her tiptoes to reach his   
lips, enchanted by his face, by what goodness and righteousness she   
saw in him, by whatever strange unnamable force was drawing them   
irresistibly together. 

A strange new voice cut into their private world. “All right lovebirds –   
give me your wallets, and keep those hands up.” They turned around   
to face their attacker. The man who had interrupted them wore a   
hastily donned woman’s stocking, blurring his features; in grey   
mittened hands, he held an old service revolver. 

Charles instinctively shoved Fiona behind him. “Take it easy,” he said.   
“The lady doesn’t have any money on her, and all I have are two   
pound notes left from dinner.”

“Good - those will help me outta my fix,” he said; Fiona noted the   
twitch of the man’s face as he clung to his gun, as well as his orange   
and green socks. She knew that they dealt with a junkie, and by his   
colors another man who had lost his dignity in the painful maze   
between support and dismissal of the grand cause. 

“Okay,” Charles said, reaching into his pocket, holding his other hand   
high over his head. “I’m not making any sudden moves….” He   
stretched his hand slowly toward his pocket. “My hand’s on my   
wallet…”

Before he could do anything more, Fiona swung her upper body   
around and clocked the would-be robber as hard as she could with the   
clipboard, then kneed him in the groin and delivered a hard right   
uppercut. Charles’ eyes widened in shock, but he made a quick dive   
for the man’s shooting arm and squeezed his trigger finger, prying it   
back from the weapon. The guy got in several lucky punches, all of   
them landing on Charles’ face and his stomach; he quickly caught one   
of the guys’ legs, viciously pulling him backward - Fi took both the gun   
and the other leg down, pinning him with leverage, and together they   
wrestled him to the ground.

Fiona wrapped their attacker’s arm around his back and twisted   
viciously until he called her every foul name one could possibly attach   
to a female form. She twisted harder, laughing when he let out an   
inarticulate wail. 

“That’s not a nice thing to call a lady,” Charles said, leaning into his   
shoulder, mock-casual in tone. “Now, if you apologize to her and   
leave, we won’ t have to get the cops involved. But if you want to play   
mister tough guy, well…I don’t play nice with guys who are bad to the   
finest girl in Ireland. Got it?”

The robber, pulling his injured arm out of Fiona’s grip, muttered a   
quick apology as he huddled over in his misery, stumbling back up the   
road. Fiona had nicked his pistol and was examining the chambers. 

“What a shoddy piece,” she taunted. “It handles like it was forged in   
tin.” Looking up from it to Charles’ face, she gasped and jammed the   
gun in her waistband, reaching out to touch his face. “You’re bleeding,   
Charles.”

“Huh?” he reached up, wiped his forehead, and seemed surprised   
when the fingers came back stained with blood. “It’s just a little   
scratch. I’ll be fine.”

She shrugged out of her jacket, wadding it up in her fist and using it to   
staunch his free-flowing cut. After four minutes of pressure, a steady   
trickle still emanated from his forehead. She handed him the jacket.   
“You should come with me – there’s a first aid kit at Sean’s   
apartment.”

If he had thought to protest, he did not act upon the notion; stumbling   
blindly with her back through town through a curtain of blood to her   
brother’s empty apartment, he barely seemed to see through the   
cracked molding and ugly green paint on the walls. Fiona knew it was   
a rat’s nest, even though she’d tried to decorate the place with   
whatever she could nick and whatever spare cash she could scrounge   
up. Accordingly, there were small fancies lying around, little bits of   
comfort and joy; lace shawls on counters, bowls of fruit on tables,   
boxes of oatmeal wafers and cans of Lyle syrup lying on the kitchen   
counter. It was a lived-in apartment, but certainly nothing which   
could properly be called ‘home’. Charles seemed not to notice   
anything but her touch as Fi led him into the apartment’s bathroom   
and settled him down on the closed lid of the toilet. Obediently,   
Charlie allowed her to settle him and gently begin pressing a bandage   
to his bleeding head.

He let out a hiss of pain as she staunched the wound, and Fiona   
dabbed away whatever blood had spilled from the compress dripped   
from his forehead into his eyes. He suddenly looked up and watched   
her with his heavily-lashed brown eyes. Fiona gave him a wan smile.   
“What can you see?”

“The prettiest girl in Ireland.”

As always, the combination of blood and the sight of a wounded man   
aroused both protective and erotic emotions within Fiona. She pushed   
back her hair and gave him a shrug, the sole bit of warning he   
received before she slammed her mouth down onto his, sucking   
hungrily on his tongue, tucking her hand into his hair and pulling hard   
and sharp upon it.

They tongue-wrestled for a good fifteen minutes before Charles   
pushed her away to slip off his suit jacket. “I guess blood equals   
foreplay in Ireland.”

She groaned and pulled him with her onto the bathroom floor. “It   
equals passion.” She was aware of his wound smearing itself upon her   
face like war paint as she greedily ripped his shirt off, enjoying the   
play of hard, strong chest muscles against her hand. Her teeth   
latched onto his nipple while he palmed her breasts and pulled up her   
shirt. 

“You’re so soft,” he growled, biting down on her own neck as his hands   
explored her breasts. Fi struggled to maintain control and found it by   
cupping his cock through his pants, stroking it, making him groan and   
toss back his head. “Christ, Fi…”

“Oh, and now I’m Fi? Not Fiona or Miss Glenanne?” she teased him,   
grabbing his ass with her free hand. They were groping each other   
like foolish teenagers on their first petting date; Fiona felt a youthful   
and abrupt urge for him to take her right there and then, damning all   
consequences. 

But before she could even draw breath she found herself hauled over   
his shoulder and carried out of the room. Settled on her cot in the   
spare bedroom – where she had spent nearly every night of her adult   
life – Fiona stripped off her business suit, the hose, and the bra. 

“Leave the panties on,” he said, gently pressing her down. What   
followed was a sexual clinic that would put the average man to shame,   
one that left Fiona sobbing, shaking and throbbing on the mattress.   
By the time he finally entered her she had been drained of all   
wildness, melting up into him, her eyes shining with erotic passion as   
she lost herself in his kiss.

They didn’t leave the bedroom for hours. Bloodstained, sweaty,   
muscles straining, arms bulging, they fought out their lust belly-to-  
belly and mouth to mouth. Fiona was a volatile but loving partner;.   
Charles surprised her in his masterful, gentle performance; he had   
clearly had many lovers, and clearly understood what a woman liked,   
and how to give her pleasure. His tongue stroked without abrading,   
making her clit the focal point though not total center of his   
ministrations. When he was finally inside of her again, Fiona lay   
supine, having been drug to the edge of orgasm a number of times by   
his lips and tongue and wrung out to her very core, her arms around   
his neck, groaning low against the softness hidden at the crook of   
Charles’ neck. 

When they were both exhausted, they shared a shower and a bottle of   
scotch. Charles showed off his creativity with a soap on the rope, and   
they shared another series of orgasms as the six o’clock hour struck.

Much later she lay in his arms, aware of the late hour in some dull   
recess of her mind, and knowing even then that it didn’t matter.   
Charles would hold her if she slept, cover for her if she couldn’t get up   
to make the party. His loyalty was a rare, fine thing, like a precious   
jewel. She tossed against the rough blankets, her head dropping back   
to his chest, a yawn rolling forth from her lips.

“Do you have a cigarette?” she mumbled.

He shook his head against the starched white linens. “I don’t smoke.”

“Nor I,” she admitted, stirring and resting her head on his chest. “But   
it seems the thing to do, after something so strong.” 

Charles let out a hoot of a laugh and tucked an arm underneath his   
own head. “Who taught a sweet Catholic girl like you to screw like   
that?” he teased, levering himself up onto an elbow.

She started to stroke his skin, playing with the slightly-rough texture   
of his chest hair. “The O’Shaugnessy boys. They liked to have their   
ladies line up in a queue, bend over and salute.” Charles’ eyebrows   
shot upward and she chuckled. “I’ve had my share of the fellows, and   
I’ve always had a delectable imagination. Tisn’t hard to put your   
anatomy and mine together and see the sparks fly.”

“Among other things,” he smirked, tugging at a lock of her hair.   
Charles’ eyes caught the glimmer of something bright in the corner of   
her room, and he shielded them, following the arc of the glare.   
“What’ve you got?”

She smiled blandly. “It’s nothing. Just my collection.’

“Collection, eh? You’ve got a hobby?”

She slipped off of his prone body, then out of bed, and walked toward   
the rickety cardboard shelves Sean had loaned her for her books.   
From among her brother’s things, she pulled free a water globe filled   
with green glitter – a plaster shamrock sprouted in the center,   
dominating a field of grass. Around the white base was a banner   
inscribed “Dublin” in Kelly green-printed Gaelic. 

He seemed a bit confused by its existence. “You collect these?”

She nodded. “I’ve only got two more – da gets one every time he   
leaves Dublin,” she explained. 

He took the delicate globe in his hand and turned it over, watching the   
glitter inside swirl around. Then he looked up again to see her   
watching him. “Fiona Glenanne. God, I want to know everything   
about you.”

“I could explain myself. I have the time,” she said. “If you have the   
ears.”

He sat still, listening, as she began. And there Fiona told him about   
her formation, some of her childhood with Claire, of her love for her   
mother, her parent’s devotion to one another, and how their lives had   
been shaped by their tiny hometowns, and then changed sweepingly   
by their move to the large city of Dublin. Of her failed attempt at   
gaining a formal education. Of the way yellowman tasted early on the   
morning of a Lammastide fair. Of how she’d turned to odd jobs, odd   
heists, to fill in the cracks; of how she never wanted to be poor again,   
would bite and claw to avoid such a fate if she had to. 

“Now you,” she ordered, tugging on a lock of his chest hair. Charles   
then volunteered bits of his life – his closely-knit childhood in a cul de   
sac in the middle of America, and a youth spent on a football field. He   
spoke of the smell of pine trees in the wintertime, and the way he’d   
gotten his distinctive scar – a life of activity and roughhousing and   
good humor – and of his pets and tree forts. She could see the merry   
history of his exploits in his eyes and suddenly wished to be a part of   
them. 

Fiona had never thought of herself as anyone’s kin before; she had   
drifted on the surface of the family with her mother’s and Claire’s   
deaths, planning only to leave with the tide, when her brother had the   
courage to let her go. But now, talking to Charles, she could envision   
partnership, unity, a family. The very notion made her pause and   
think for a minute, watching his face as he stroked her hair and told   
her of the wonders of America. 

“I can’t come to America,” she decided aloud, before he’d even asked.   
“I’ve heard quite a bit about the tea over the pond. Don’t believe I will   
ever find a proper cuppa if I moved,” she pouted, when he suggested   
she’d be a quintessential American girl in less than an hour.

“We import our tea,” he replied. “And our pretty girls,” he added   
jocularly, a smile tipping his lips up.

She didn’t believe in that touristy hokum Chuck sold, but maybe – just   
maybe – there was hope for a life beyond the bombs and vengeance.   
And only Charles’ words made her believe in the possibility of their   
truth.

  
~~~~~~~~

Hours later, the beer flowed at her aunt’s small cottage in Derry. Finn   
smiled indulgently at his gathered family, and Fiona drank herself deep   
into her cups, her belly filled with lamb roast and carrots as she   
passed him his gifts. The room was redolent with the scent of a peat   
fire and fine tobacco burning, and the sound of twenty relatives from   
both sides gossiping away. She smiled proudly at Charles from across   
the room as she listened to her aunt’s endless clacking. One of them   
elbowed her in the side and pointed at him while he slapped Finn’s   
back and bellowed out a laugh at his jokes.

“Tis a fine fish you’ve caught, Tad,” she teased her. “I hope you’ll be   
keeping him at your side.”

Fiona smiled. “If he wiggles his way off the hook it won’t be on   
account of something I did,” she declared.

“Hey, Fi!” came his shout from across the room. “Wanna dance?”

The music was something loud, horn-drenched, and played by that   
same pub band they’d crammed into the apartment and paid off with   
tubs of rye liquor. When she looked up, Charles was contorting his   
body in some odd version of the Twist, snapping it back and forth to   
the rhythm. Fiona kicked her heels off, green skirts flying in full circle   
around her ankles, coming up to him clapping, her eyes sparkling as   
she laughed, her movements long and abrupt.

He swept her in and she dodged away. “You’re too frisky, Charlie. Let   
me come closer.”

“You already did that,” he sassed, just loud enough for her to hear.   
The room filled with hooting and gently jeering laughter; she was   
expected to be a wife by now, and male attention from a responsible   
boy was more than welcome. She was so shocked by his wildness that   
she let go of his arm, and Charlie spun her around and around, making   
her laugh, balance lost, shoes forgotten and equilibrium gone.

Then, when the party was over, he took her back to her shoddy little   
appartment and made slow, impassioned, artful love to her, until tears   
came to her eyes and she couldn’t envision a world or place in which   
he didn’t exist.

Afterwards, as the sweat dried on their bodies and the moon lit their   
sky, he reached to the floor and plucked up a small package wrapped   
in twine and dull grey newsprint. He palmed it delicately and held it   
out to Fiona. “Here,” he said.

She wrinkled her nose and gave it a suspicious look. “It’s not my   
birthday,” she reminded him. 

“I could hand it to Finn if you…”

“Oh, give me that!” Fiona laughed, holding out her open palm. He   
tossed her the package, and she pulled back the paper, grinning   
brilliantly as the object within was slowly unveiled. 

It was a snow globe with a thick darkly-finished oak base, with a large   
claddagh ring gleaming gold at its center. She shook it like a child   
with a rattle, her eyes gleaming as silver tinfoil stars rained down over   
it. “Another piece for the pile, eh?”

“Well, I couldn’t give your little brother a love token,” Charlie declared.   
“That would be really weird. But for you, Red? It’s a perfect gift.” He   
looped an arm around her back. “Do you like it?” 

She lay back in his arms, turning the globe backward and forward,   
upside down, and then right-side up. “I didn’t tell you why I collect   
them,” she said out of the blue, “did I?”

“Not yet.”

She played with the edge of the glass rim for a moment; then,   
handing the treasure to him, she said, “my mother always collected   
globes of her own. I would spend hours as a girl holding them to the   
light, turning them around and around so that the snow would swirl   
around the figurine inside. One day, I came back from school and   
every last one had disappeared. When I asked why, Ma said that Da   
had sold them all at a pawn shop for the money he needed to get his   
printing press up.”

Charlie listened to her story without indicating prejudice. “Do you   
think he made the right choice? Everyone at the party kept talking   
about what a solid newsman your father is.”

“So he brags to strangers.” A sarcastic laugh bubbled up from her   
chest. “The paper folded years ago. He works for another man, an   
assistant of an assistant, after thirty years a writer. All of his   
rebellions won him more of the same, a double-share of it.”

He wrapped an arm around Fiona’s slim waist. “But he’s making   
himself happy. Even though he’s selling his own soul for the cash to   
do it.”

She shook her head. “I’m making my own way,” she declared. “My   
own way with my own money, and I won’t sell a single one of my   
globes to pay for it! I’ll be my own woman.”

“You already are your own woman,” Charlie declared, setting the globe   
aside. “And a brave one at that.”

She nestled against his side. There remained no need for platitudes   
between them, now that she’d had her say. He continued the   
companionable silence, and soon she fell asleep, the dazzling   
whiteness of the globe lying cradled between them on the virginal   
newness of Fiona’s linen pillowcase.

~~~~~~~~ 

The days passed by, one blending to the other seamlessly, and the   
closer they grew together the worse Sam felt about lying to her. His   
supervisors mercilessly hammered him for information, and Sam knew   
he couldn’t let the Glenannes get away with bombing that bank on the   
day of the Queen’s arrival, but Fiona trusted him implicitly with her   
every word, and Sam didn’t have the heart to tell her of his own   
duplicity. 

He knew too well from her stories she didn’t trust many men.

Plying Sean with whiskey on odd nights when the stress at the plant   
grew too much for him was an easier in to the near-fiasco; details   
spilled out day by day, and Sam slipped the news out to his cronies in   
pieces, trusting his intelligence contacts to thread everything together   
correctly. Sean and Fiona hadn’t made plans to move forward with   
their desire to bomb the bank as of yet – it was all preliminary work,   
groundwork and the art of seizing new weaponry. Sam and Fiona   
continued their combat exercises, as well as their running drills and   
their marksmanship practice. He would later figure out through his   
own contacts that the Glenannes never planned their heists   
extensively ahead of time; they simply went with the flow of the   
moment, struck when the bank was most vulnerable monetarily, their   
need most great or when the news was most grim; true Robin Hoods   
at heart, they preferred to seem the heroes of the day instead of the   
selfish privateers seeking their own glory. 

“Da’s going to the procession,” Sean finally revealed on the   
penultimate night before the Queen’s arrival. “I need him good and   
gone, in case…” he swallowed hard and clasped Sam on the back.   
“Listen to me drone on like a lily-livered bastard. I’ll live to fight   
another year. But if it gets cocked up, you’ll do Fiona a good turn. I   
know you will.” 

Sam swallowed the lump he’d been carrying in his throat all day.   
“Yeah.”

Sean grinned at him blearily. “Fiona’s a fine girl,” he declared. “Finest   
girl in the clan Glenanne. She’s lead every man in Dublin on a merry   
chase, but you…” he smirked. “You she trusts….”

“A yank with no sense of decency.”

Both men met the piggish eyes of Seamus as he entered the bar.   
“And ye’re a horse’s ass with no loyalty.” Sean declared.

Seamus’ smile was mean. “I hope you don’t mind hearing the sea’s   
echo in her fanny, Finley.”

“Sean…” Sam warned the younger man, but his fingers were already   
tightening on his beer mug.

“I’m only saying what he knows,” Seamus crowed. “Fiona’s a slut   
who’ll spread her legs for anyone in the Dawneys,” declared Seamus,   
two seconds before Sean’s fist met his teeth.

Sam managed to pry the two brawling men apart – barely. Seamus   
was spitting mad, upending mugs as MacDougal pulled him toward the   
doorway. “I’ll be seeing you in hell, Gleanne!” he shouted. “If I don’t   
put you there first!”

“Milksop,” muttered Sean, rubbing his swollen jaw. 

“Don’t pay attention to him,” advised Sam. “In a coupla days, this’ll   
all be over and you’ll be set for life.”

He took a swallow of his beer and tried to relax. It would be too soon   
before he had to face his supervisor tonight.

~~~~~~~~

Sam fell asleep holding Fiona that night, knowing that something –   
somehow – wasn’t right, unable to shake the gnawing sense of worry.   
He didn’t quite know why he felt that way, until the door to Fiona’s   
room burst open and admitted a stream of soldiers to the interior.

She screamed and clawed at him, but Sam was pried backward and off   
of her body; he recognized the colors of their uniforms instantly, knew   
who had dared to interrupt their hour of bliss.

“Mister Finley,” a scrub barked, his hand on the back of Sam’s neck.   
“You’re coming with us, Sir.”

“You have the wrong man,” Fiona pleaded, spitting and fighting for her   
life beneath the stricture of the soldier holding her in place.

“Stay still, Fi,” he begged her, as he was hauled to his feet and   
marched toward the hallway. 

“What’s happening?” she asked. Someone slammed a hand over her   
mouth and pulled her, fighting and twisting like an alley cat, out the   
front door, right behind Sam. 

“Hey, don’t hurt her!” Sam shouted, but he was pulled out of the   
apartment before he could assist Fiona further. Someone was   
shouting as the tenants of the building spilled into the hallway;   
someone threw a bucket of water on the head of one of those soldiers,   
but the pull was too strong; Sam was gone, carried out fighting and   
nude in the Irish winter, shoved into the back of a paddy wagon   
without further discussion.

The soldier behind him held Sam’s head down until the door was   
barred. Then, abruptly, the weight was off his neck, and Sam looked   
up, half-afraid to see what had brought him to this place. He met the   
eyes of Carlton, his supervising officer. 

“Jesus,” he groaned. 

“Relax,” instructed Carlton, unhooking Sam’s cuffs. “We had to give   
her a little show.” He threw Sam his boxers, and Sam pulled them on   
quickly. “A kid named Seamus tipped off one of our agents that the   
Gleannes were going to strike tomorrow morning. He thought he was   
confessing to a British soldier,” he laughed, lit a cigar and offered it to   
Sam, who waved it away with a shake of his head. “The rest of the   
team’s taking Sean in.”

“Y’know I’m not against surprises, but why didn’t you warn me?” Sam   
complained, raking a hand through his shaggy hair. 

“It was spur-of-the-moment,” he declared. “Couldn’t let loose lips sink   
our ship.”

“Right,” Sam grunted. He’d wanted to leave Fiona with the morning   
sun, a kiss to her cheek and a rose on her pillow; instead, they would   
be ripped apart without further word. “What are you going to tell   
her?”

“You’re going to meet an unfortunate accident.” He slid his palm along   
the topside of his right arm, then sent it careening off the tips of his   
fingers. “Right off a bridge. She’ll understand when they don’t find   
your body, and won’t have time to think of revenge when we kindly   
suggest she leave the country and start a new life that doesn’t involve   
destabilizing Ireland’s bank system.”

“Jesus, does it have to be such a melodrama?” Sam complained.

“Your whole life is a melodrama, sailor,” he replied. “We’re evacing   
you out ASAP. You should be back at Quantico by tomorrow night.”

Sam leaned against the door and closed his eyes as the truck pulled   
away. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to go back to his apartment to   
pack! But, as always, the Navy thought on its feet; They handed him   
his pack with great formality at the threshold of the jet taking him   
back to Virginia. As the sun rose over Dublin as he rid himself of his   
light red-brown hair in the airplane bathroom, throwing away the thick   
sweaters he’d accumulated over the past few months, trading them for   
simple linen shirts and pants. He peered out the window as they   
taxied back up the runway, giving one last look to dirty, pretty Dublin,   
which had given him a taste of love at first sight, freshly-wrought   
desire, only to kill all beneath the steel blanket of duty.

He had a one-way ticket to Manassas and his debriefing docs; he knew   
if the state department liked what he’d done he’d go up in rank. Yet   
for all he’d accomplished he felt somewhat empty, as if his heart had   
been sucked out of his chest. 

“Good work, Axe,” his supervisor clapped him on the back. “You’ve   
saved thousands of lives tonight.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. So they had. It was a huge deal, and he should   
be proud of himself. He sipped the stale coffee he’d been brought and   
rested his head against the window once more. Closing his eyes, he   
let himself believe that this was the only way Fiona could start a life   
for herself, away from the bitter vengeance that soaked her world in   
her native country. It was her one chance to grow up right and free,   
and shine in her own light.

The Queen’s visit passed by without further incidence, though he   
would later learn that Fiona’s father had been forced to skip the   
procession to bail his errant progeny out of jail. And Sam got his   
commission, a command post with fresh new orders and fresh new   
demands. After years of travelling around doing good and bad in   
equal measure, after surviving the jungles of Columbia and frigid   
Antarctica, he finally found time to rest and glory in the spoils of his   
success; beer and broads included. Sam got on with his own life, step   
by step.

But he never could forget the little redhead spinning toward him at   
that house party in Dublin, laughing and throwing her arms around his   
neck, loving him without fear.

~~~~~~~~

**Miami, Florida  
Present Day**

  
It was an ideal Floridian morning. The sun was bracingly hot, teasing   
Sam’s skin with the possibility of slightly more mellow late afternoon   
sunshine. He’d slept in after his latest lady had kept him up all night;   
she was a nice girl but the sexually demanding type. Sam wouldn’t   
complain as he stretched his aching knees and faced his pile of half-  
empties and TV dinner trays. He ruffled his hair, put on a pair of   
boxers and got his favorite Hawaiian shirt on, along with a pair of   
jeans. 

His retirement was pretty close to perfect; he’d settled completely into   
a life of booze, beaches, fishing, TV, fatty foods, and sponging off of   
beautiful girls. After having given his time and life to the military for   
so long, he now gloried in his well-deserved rest, even if cutting to the   
chase had meant playing dirty.

The Columbian Incident had made him somewhat of a legend in his   
own time, and had helped him cut a wide swath through the upper   
brass of his branch of enlistment. He got a sweet severance package   
deal out of the situation, ultimately ending up in Miami, and the laps of   
several wealthy socialites who appreciated his oral skills.

The only fly in his otherwise flawless, fly-free ointment of a life had   
popped up in the form of a phone call from his old buddy, Mike   
Westen. The straight-laced, tough-as-nails undercover op was headed   
to Miami to bury his father. Frank had been an abusive bastard, and   
Mike had repeatedly stated his glee at the old man’s death during their   
two-hour fuzz-filed phone conversation. Sam showed up at two sharp   
and waited for Michael’s flight to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

He eventually went to the airport bar to grab a beer and found Mike   
sporting four days’ worth of beard stubble and a sunhat. Blearily, he   
waved a half-full glass stein in Sam’s direction.

“Heyyy buddy,” he grinned. “How’s it going?”

Sam winced back from the impact of Michael’s breath. “Okay. Mike,   
you smell like an alcoholic’s boxers.”

Michael smiled at him blearily. “That’s part of my charrrm, old buddy,”   
Michael declared, sloshing the brew against the seat. He pointed to   
the stool opposite his. “Sit down and take a load off, my treat.”

Sam shook his head. “I’ve gotta get you back to my place. You ain’t   
lookin’ so hot.”

Michael laughed. “Blame that on the old man. I do. Lousy son of a   
bitch had to die two days before my retirement went into effect.”

“Yeah, about that Mike…” Sam winced as he attempted to help Michael   
up. “You don’t wanna freak out your mom by showing up to the   
funeral wasted, do you?”

Michael’s unfocused gaze rested on Sam’s eyebrows. “Ma’s a   
hypochondriac, Sam. She’d worry about me if I was Superman.” He   
chuckled. “She doesn’t know where I’ve been!” He snorted. 

“You couldn’t’ve sent her a postcard from Abu Dabi,” Sam replied.   
“We’ve all had screwed up shit in our past, Mikey.”

Michael shuffled his shoulders. “God, I hated that bastard. He used to   
beat my mom. Can you imagine hitting a woman…?” He gestured   
ineffectually. “A civilian woman?”

Sam shook his head. “Well, the guy’s rotting in hell,” he stood up.   
“And maybe I should drive.”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed readily enough, staggering up beside Sam.   
“You should.”

The ride back to Sam’s penthouse was strewn with vomit-laden pit   
stops. Fifteen minutes later, he parked the Caddy out of the sunlight   
(just like Miss Eveleigh liked it) and helped Michael out the passenger   
side door. It took him five minutes to run Mike through a perfunctory   
shower and tuck him into bed; his best friend passed out quietly and   
started snoring.

Sam – not one to benefit from the ravages of experience - decided to   
snag himself a beer pronto. Sitting down, he let out a grunt and   
popped it open with his teeth; it would be a couple of hours before   
Mikey came around, and in that time he would kick back and try to   
decide if he should make dinner or take his own nap.

Then he heard a rustling near the door.

Sam’s shoulders tensed; he and Mike had no shortage of enemies, and   
it wouldn’t be a far-fetched conclusion to suggest that one of them   
might have followed him to the apartment. Slowly, he reached into his   
waistband to snag his gun. Cocking it, he slid close the door before   
yanking it open.

Only to see a well-manicured lawn and a busy suburban sidewalk.

Sam scratched his temple; frowning, he took a step forward and   
nearly tripped over a prone form jammed in the doorframe.

His heart sped as he realized just what he’d bumped against – a   
human body. Crouching, he reached for a slim wrist – it was a   
woman, red-haired, limp, blood-coated; she had a strong pulse, was   
still breathing. A knot formed purple-grey on her forehead, and her   
lips were caked with blood, drawing them down in an artificial crimson   
line. He’d pulled her into his lap and stroked the hair from her face   
before realizing just who he’d taken into his arms.

“Fiona…” he breathed the name. Jesus, someone had done a number   
on her. Sam’s shock disappeared in the light of rationality; he moved   
quickly to pull her into the penthouse before someone called the   
police.

He carried Fi to the couch, settled her there, and started calling her   
name. “C’mon, darlin’,” he begged. “Wake up. I know you’re still in   
there…”

Green eyes flew open, and a lightning-quick fist connected with Sam’s   
groin. He hunched in pain, clutching himself. “Son of a bitch!” She’d   
scrambled back on the couch, her eyes wild, groping about in her   
waistband for a weapon. “Woah, easy, honey…” 

Fi lay motionless for ten long minutes before relaxing. “Jesus and   
Joseph, I thought I’d died.” Her eyes narrowed. “I saw you and   
thought I’d gone to hell.”

Sam winced. Since that morning in Dublin Fi hadn’t seen him, but   
he’d seen her; once at a distance at some formal function for a sultan   
in Bahrain, again at Heathrow Airport, running to make his connecting   
flight. He always turned to follow the candle flame flow of a head of   
red hair, but his traitorous feet never followed, as he never expected   
her face to belong to the woman he’d desired and missed for so many   
years. “That’s not important now,” he declared, disappearing briefly   
into the bathroom. He returned with a cloth and bandages and a   
bottle of alcohol, half-expecting her to have ransacked the room while   
he was gone in her anger. But Fiona laid perfectly still, her eyes   
climbing the wall beside the couch.

“You lied to me,” she said quietly, as Sam daubed the cloth into a   
puddle of astringent. “I know that much. Why didn’t you just leave   
me out there to…” she cursed as he pressed the towel to her bleeding   
forehead. 

“Because you were suffering. I don’t know how you think I feel   
about you. But Fi- we got off on lousy footing back in Ireland.   
Everything I said when I was Chuck Finley, I actually felt. When I was   
him – I loved you. That part of it was real.”

She collapsed into divisive laughter. “Is that what you tell your wife?”   
she glared at him. He winced, and she twisted the knife. “Does she   
know you screw around on her for the good of Uncle Sam?”

He shook his head. “I’m not married.”

“But you live with a woman.” She glared at him, gestured at the   
pictures of Miss Eversliegh shining out from the walls. “I should have   
guessed that this is how far you’d fall. I’ll never understand why they   
pay you so much just to have a man like you service them.   
Considering the shape you’re in…”

Sam cut her off. “Hey, sister, this body’s a temple; women come by   
to worship it twice day.”

“Oh, I’m sure. Even creaky old buildings get love from the occasional   
lonely tourist,” she replied. He glared at her.

“I told you I didn’t wanna leave,” Sam said. “It wasn’t my fault. And   
maybe if you weren’t such a hot-headed little leprechaun I wouldn’t   
have had to sneak around. Still blowing up banks in your spare time,   
or have you moved on to busting hearts?”

She tried to kick him in the balls again, but Sam was far too fast.   
“Easy, princess. Don’t strain yourself.”

She glared up at him. “You worthless, irresponsible, fat…”

“This is insulation for a sex machine, sugar,” he replied lightly. “You   
didn’t answer me.”

“I’m in arms now,” she said. “Big arms, small arms – grenades,   
plastic explosives…”

“Knew you were a pyromaniac,” he declared playfully. “So how’re you   
coping?”

She rolled her eyes. “Splendidly, until my last contact decided I was   
too troublesome for his taste.” She relaxed as he improvised a   
bandage for her. “Still a Government pencil pusher, or do you live off   
of the checkbook of this woman?”

“I’m retired now,” he replied dryly. “I push myself.”

“You, retired. I can’t imagine it,” Fiona responded, her eyes stormy   
and dangerous.

“Everyone has to rest sometimes,” Sam pointed out.

She laughed. “I don’t rest, I run.”

“And that’s worked out well for you,” he said sarcastically. “Fiona, do   
you…”

Upstairs, a door creaked open. “Hey, Sam, I’ve got to…” Michael’s   
head peeped around the corner of the doorframe. “Who’s the girl?”

Fiona self-consciously tried to fix her hair, and Sam stepped   
protectively into Michael’s line of sight. “A ghost from the past,” Sam   
remarked sarcastically.

“Sam?” Fiona muttered.

“This is Fiona Glenanne. Fi, this is Mike Westen, former international   
man of mystery. This is a guy who’s so strong and bright you wouldn’t   
believe it unless you saw him in action. Ice wouldn’t melt in his   
mouth. What’d you want, Mikey?”

“The toilet’s backed up.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sorry.”

Sam winced, and scratched at his neck. “Right. Need anything else?”

“Nah. I’m gonna take a break out on the balcony, enjoy the breeze for   
awhile.”

“See you.” Sam turned around and sighed. Once the door was   
closed, Fiona chuckled.

“That’s the fearsome Michael Westen?” she shook her head. “He looks   
like a Bowery drunk!”

“He’s the best field agent I’ve known in my thirty years of service.”   
She gave him an uncomprehending look. “He used to be this   
audacious bastard; one of the most intense, unstoppable machines I’d   
ever met. But ever since his dad died, he’s been walking around like a   
zombie.” 

“When someone you love dies, it takes a part of you.” Sam understood   
that just as well as she did, but when he turned back toward her Fiona   
didn’t add anything to the conversation.

“Yeah. Been there.” With his mom, with his first ex; death had kissed   
him with its icy lips before. “Someone wants you dead.” Sam’s guess   
made her hunch her shoulders, but she didn’t argue. “Okay, I need   
you to stay with me for awhile – until we figure out why they want to   
kill you.”

She turned to the wall and closed her eyes, but her voice rang sharp   
and true. “Tell me your real name,” Fiona demanded. “That’s the   
least you owe me after all of this.”

Sam took a deep breath. “I’m Sam Axe. I used to be a SEAL.”

She rolled her shoulders and laid down on the couch. “Spare me your   
clichés,” she demanded. Then she drifted away into unconsciousness.

*** 

Madeline Westen’s house was tiny, in a middle-class neighborhood   
within a semi-urban neighborhood in one of the better parts of Coral   
Gables. Fiona’s bruises were barely healed, so she’d stayed caged like   
a tigress at Miss Eversliegh’s while Sam ferried Mike to the funeral. By   
then, Mike seemed more his solemn, grim-eyed self. Sam watched   
him throughout the service, making sure he could hold it together, but   
Michael was lock-jawed, remote of expression and eye contact.

Madeline approached them after the service in her dark black   
mourning suit, her look strained with tension but lit with the joy of   
seeing her long-distant son; she hugged Sam, then Michael, beside the   
buffet table. “I’m so glad you came,” she declared, stroking her son’s   
scarred cheek.

Michael froze and pulled out of his mother’s embrace. “I came   
because you need me,” he declared gruffly. 

She reached into her purse, pulling out a Marlboro Red and a lighter.   
“I told you on the phone that I’m fine.” She didn’t look sad to Sam at   
all. She inhaled, exhaled a plume of white smoke, and then asked,   
“how do you like retirement?”

“At thirty-eight it’s not fun,” Michael declared. “But sometimes that’s   
the risk you pay when you work for the government. If they want to   
give you the gold watch treatment, for whatever reason, you have to   
go with it or they’ll twist your arm.”

Sam – who didn’t know how much Michael had told his mother about   
his government assignment – stayed mum and watched them as they   
talked, occasionally draining another inch from his bottle of beer. 

“Where are you going to settle down?”

“Ma…” Michael groused.

“It’s a decent question,” Madeline pointed out. “And you do have   
family here.”

“If you’re using that sort of criteria,” Michael pointed out, “Nate’s in   
Vegas. I could move to Nevada.”

Maddie’s nose wrinkled. “You would never survive there. It’s too hot,   
walking around would give you terrible blisters, and it has all of those   
cheap girls with their flashy dresses. Do you think that would be good   
for you?”

Michael smiled wanly. “Yep.”

“Oh Michael…”

“Uh Mike…can we wrap this up? The little she-cat I’ve got back at my   
place is gonna start wanting dinner soon.”

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Maddie smiled. “Boys, could I ask you   
for a favor?”

“I fixed the squeaky wheel on your roll-away bed last night, Ma.”

“Not that kind of favor,” Madeline crooked her finger at them both and   
leaned in, whispering, “a friend of mine at the senior center – Missus   
Bracchiola – her boy’s run into some kind of trouble…”

“Ma…” 

Sam glanced at Michael, barely biting back a smirk. He admired   
Madeline’s persistence, but this was a bit much. “What do you need?”

“Well, he’s been in a bit of trouble – someone took his Plymouth. He   
loved that car and Terri’s been upset since he lost it.” Confidentially,   
she added, “it was a family heirloom.”

Sam tried to gauge Michael’s reaction as he spoke. “I don’t know.   
Sounds like it might be fun. You need a little partnership, for this one,   
Mikey?” 

Michael shot Sam a look that screamed ‘are you insane?’, his shoulders   
stiff and his lips a grim line. Sam just smirked back and sipped his   
beer. Michael didn’t have anywhere to go and Sam was deliriously   
happy where he was; they had might as well make money while they   
were together and in Florida. Michael’s smile was just a little bit terse   
when he turned back toward Madeline.

“You’ll have to give me some more details to work with. Where was   
the car the last time he saw it, and what day was…”

Sam grinned as he stood back and watched them together. Who   
knew: they might actually end up getting some fun out of this deal. 

*** 

By the time Sam got back to the condo, someone was puttering   
around in the kitchen. It was an even bet as to which of his lady loves   
was manning the Cuisinart – until the red hair gave her away. He   
stood on his tiptoes to peer over Fiona’s shoulder.

“Ribs?”

Fiona grunted and glared back at him. “Do you not knock in America?”   
she wondered. “They’re braised beef short ribs with a maple-chipotle   
glaze and a fine miso extraction.”

He reached into the fridge and uncapped his beer. “I see someone’s   
having an affair with the Food Network.”

She started serving up piles of mashed potatoes without further   
comment. “It’s stultifying here. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll be forced to   
try out my C4 on the neighbor’s plastic flamingos.”

Sam shook his head. “You know you can’t do that Fi. Not without me   
or Mike backing you up.” She glared at his smirking face, and he   
quickly added, “you’re a security risk. You could get yourself killed.”

“I got myself from Europe without dying.”

Sam poked the bruise still glowing lividly on her exposed shoulder,   
which earned him a fist to the side. He groaned, cursing and rubbing   
his flesh. “And they beat the hell out of you in the process! Come   
on, Fi, think before you leap.” 

Her movement caught him off guard - a flicker of motion from the   
corner of his eye, tackling him to the ground. Sam gaped up at Fi as   
she sunk the four-inch knife into the floor of the condo two inches by   
his head. “I’ve never been one to do that, Sam,” she said in a silky   
voice. “Hmm, maybe you should be the one looking before you take a   
jump into a mystery?”

“I lost the chance to get out when I brought you inside,” Sam replied. 

“What happened to you, Sam?” she teased, sitting up. “You were so   
virile and handsome. Now you’re…old. Old and fat….”

“You already said that,” Sam pouted. Geez, was she going to keep   
rubbing it in? “I’m off the clock. Don’t need to dress for anyone, or   
stay in shape.”

“What about your ‘sugar mommas’?”

He smirked. “They love my gruff charm.”

Fi rolled her eyes at him, finally getting up off his lap and withdrawing   
the knife. She jammed it in the belt loop of her apron, and then   
turned back toward the ribs. They sizzled as she took the tongs to   
them. “Where is she?” Fiona asked suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Your latest catch,” Fiona wondered, grabbing a baster and squirting   
the ribs with au jus. “Or has she already erred on the side of sanity   
and disappeared?” 

Sam’s brow wrinkled. “She’s supposed to be visiting her sister in   
Boca. They were talking about going to Hollywood for the weekend,   
maybe taking in a little shopping on Rodeo along the way.”

“And you don’t expect her to be back?”

That was the sticky wicket. Sam had been spending a lot of his time   
travelling down to Jupiter, dazzling and distracting Helena with   
sparkling champagne, backrubs, and fancy oral tricks; he knew the   
more exciting the separation was, the longer she’d keep dallying with   
her sister. “Not for another two weeks. Long enough to get you your   
own place and me twenty grand in the blue.”

“Really?” Fiona pouted. “And what makes you think I’m willing to do   
what you ask me to do?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “You don’t have anywhere else to go.   
And Helena’s my only financial lifeline at this point….”

“Samuel. James. Axe.”

Sam froze and very, very slowly turned around to face the fuming   
blonde standing in the doorway. “Helena-haha!” he coughed out.   
“Uh…how’s your sister?”

“Who’s this?” She pointed a finger menacingly at Fiona.

Sam shot a pleading look toward Fiona. She straightened her   
shoulders and held out her hand. “I’m Mary Glenanne – Sam hired me   
to make dinner for you tonight.”

He chuckled wildly, his eyes flashing. “SURPRISE, honey!” Sam   
grinned. He gently clasped Helena around the shoulders and turned   
her around, propelling her toward the kitchen table. “I had a feeling   
you might be coming home soon.” The quick look he took over his   
shoulder revealed a clearly peeved Fi. He turned himself around,   
pulled out Helena’s chair. “A seat pour vous, pour favour…” He   
reached for her napkin, wincing as Fi sharpened the knife against the   
countertop, and then sliced through the rack of pork ribs with a single   
stroke. “Uh…” he squeaked out. “How about a little wine?”

“Sure,” she began to relax. “You’re really swell, Sam – even though   
this is weird.”

“Eh, everybody’s a little weird,” he teased, leaning mock-casually   
against his own chair. Fiona whirled about from the counter,   
depositing the plates with mashed potatoes, ribs, and wilted greens   
onto the table before them. Sam leapt and winced at her every thud   
and crash in the kitchen, but tried to focus on pouring the wine for   
Helena. “So, what do you think?”

She took a forkful of the greens, mixed them up, and then plunked a   
mouthful between her ruby lips. She chewed deliberately before   
saying, “Well they’re good. But really, Sam – ribs? Those are going   
to add twenty pounds to my ass!”

“You could use them!” Fiona called cheerfully.

“HA HA,” he cut in quickly. “Let me get you that…” He reached,   
pulled her napkin out, and whipped it over her décolletage. Helena   
eyed him as he pecked her forehead. “Do you need me to cut your   
meat?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow. “And that went right over the line into   
creepy,” she declared. 

Sam chuckled. “Uh…Okay…so no creepy. Scout’s honor,” he   
promised, saluting her and getting back in his seat. He picked up the   
stem glass of wine and hoisted it. “To the future,” he said.

“The future,” Helena agreed, clinking her glass against his. Fiona   
rattled around the kitchen, deliberately making as much noise as   
possible as she got her own dish together. Helena eyed her   
distastefully as she sat down at the counter behind them and started   
eating. “Do you always dine with the help?” asked Helena.

Sam managed a thin, hard-pressed smile. “I owe Mary a few favors,”   
he said, explaining the entire situation with as few details as possible.

“That’s right,” Fi said, chopping up her greens with dexterity any   
tapiaki chef would envy. “And Sam needs as much help as he can get,   
on most days.”

Helena turned around, chuckling knowingly. “Sam’s worth the trouble,   
most of the time, but boy are you right.”

“I know, I know!” Fiona chuckled sympathetically. “He’ always in and   
out of mischief. You just never know who he is from day to day, do   
you?”

Helena eyed Sam, who was shoving dinner down with abandon.   
“Never. I guess that’s why it was so exciting.”

“How did you two meet?” Fiona wondered.

Helena burbled, “It was magical! I was in Pompano for a relator’s   
retreat, and our eyes met from across the crowded beach. I came to   
sit by him without another thought, like we had been drawn to each   
other over the mystery of the centuries…”

“…I do have a magnetic personality,” Sam declared.

“And then he looked down at me and, with those beautiful eyes of his,   
smiled and said…”

“Do you come here?” they asked together. 

“And ever since then I’ve been coming here,” Sam declared, a huge   
smirk on his face.

Fiona smiled, a thin-pressed glower that would have scared any other   
mortal man. “Sam is good with women. He knows very well how to   
press and pull and prod.”

“Yes but…how do you know that?” Helena eyed Sam, who gulped.

“I knew Sam very well in his youth. When he was more vigorous,” she   
watched him steadily, until Sam coughed and looked toward his plate.

“Great ribs, Mary,” Sam declared.

“They’re your favorite. I remember the pub.” She pulled a mouthful   
of meat from the bone, and Sam cringed away.

“Yeah…the nineties were a crazy time,” Sam replied, twiddling with his   
fork. “So, how about those potatoes?”

“You did so enjoy target practice,” Fiona said loftily, crossing her legs.

“Target. Practice.” Each word thunked out from between Helena’s lips   
with deadly weight. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying,   
Mary?”

“Well, you’d have to ask Sam about that,” Fiona declared, scooping up   
some mashed potatoes. “He is quite the little sharpshooter, aren’t you   
Sam?”

He glared at Fi over the top of his beer. She was lucky he was too   
much of a gentleman to smack her right in her arrogant face…mostly   
because she would break his jaw in retaliation. “That was a long   
time ago. She used to be an ex of mine, but we’re…”

“…She’s your ex-girlfriend?” Helena asked, her voice rising in deadly   
sharpness.

Sam gulped, tried a false smile. Fiona’s smile was razor sharp as she   
collected the dishes.

“Would anyone like an after-dinner mint?” she replied. “It might be a   
good idea to freshen yourself up. Sam despises slack women….”

Helena’s arm struck out, colliding with the dish of cherry cobbler and   
spilling it down the front of Fiona’s dress. She launched herself at the   
woman with a howl, and they rolled together across the floor, striking   
and kicking as Sam tried to yank them apart.

The catfight that resulted sent Fi to the county lockup and Sam to the   
street with a cardboard box containing his belongings.

*** 

She was still complaining about it as they went to meet Michael the   
following afternoon. “Can you blame me for behaving that way? She   
was an uppity bitch.”

“You were jealous,” Sam replied, pulling open her door. 

“You would think I was jealous, you overstuffed shirt!” Fiona replied,   
tossing her hair in his face as they mounted the stairs to Maddie’s   
house. They rang the bell and met a puff of Marlboro smoke, which   
wreathed the smoker’s beaming face.

“Sam, how nice to see you!” She glanced at Fiona. “Sorry, I don’t   
think we’ve met yet. What’s your name? I’m Madeline, Michael’s   
mother.”

“Fiona Glenanne.” She gently shoved past Maddie and into the room   
proper.

“Michael’s in the kitchen,” she called over her shoulder, and Fiona   
stalked off in that direction, following the sound of a football game   
piped through cheap TV speakers. 

“I’m sorry, Mad,” Sam gently replied. “That’s Fi. She can be a little   
bit…pushy.”

Maddie tucked her hands against her hips. “Did you mean bitchy?   
You can say bitchy – I’m not afraid of a few four-letter words.”

Sam’s features flattened. “Never mind. I owe you dinner sometime.”   
He pecked her forehead and rushed away.

When Sam entered the kitchen, he saw Michael carefully polishing a   
service revolver while Fiona hovered over him.

“…But you told me the passports would be ready by noon!” She   
sounded surprisingly and unusually petulant.

“I can’t predict the speed of my guy,” Michael responded, reasonable   
in the face of her complete and total anger.

Sam cut in, “Whoa, Fi, I told you you shouldn’t try to leave! Whatever   
or whoever dumped you on my doorstep wants you dead, and if you   
go back to wherever you came from…”

“Must you bray at me?” Fiona wondered. “It might do you good to ask   
just where I did come from.”

“Hell,” Sam suggested.

She rolled her eyes. “Libya. It was a deal gone bad. If you’re not   
willing to work with me, I’m sure Michael will.”

Sam stared at Michael, but the other man didn’t even bother to   
acknowledge him. Slowly, he glanced up from the pile, then at the   
two of them. “Did you want something?”

“Are you gonna support her or me?” Sam asked.

“In regards to what?”

Sam groaned. “Mike, please pay attention to us.”

Michael sat back in his chair. “While the two of you are behaving this   
way I’d rather not. Are you two still doing your…” he waved a hand in   
the air. “Thing?”

“Woah, wait a minute – since when are we still a thing?” he asked,   
crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Since you need me to convince Fiona to stay in Miami, even though   
she wants to leave,” Michael pointed out, sipping his water. “You used   
to be able to do that with a smirk and a twist of your hips.”

Sam grinned. “Right.” Fi glared at them both for making the semi-  
fatal mistake of talking around her.

“How soon can you get me out of this country?” she growled.

Michael could only shrug. “It’s going to take as long as it’ll take. You   
really should have asked Sam, he’s the guy with all the forgery   
expertise.”

Fiona glared at Sam, indicating with her very look that she considered   
asking him for help beneath her. Sam coughed. “Uh…yeah…so Mike,   
I’ve got some news on the apartment situation.” 

“What sort of news?” Michael’s eyebrow slowly poked upward, Fi’s   
smile ticking slowly upward in response to it.

“Well,” Sam grinned. “I think I found a guy who’s willing to give us a   
discount, really cheap. The only catch is there’s no bedroom.”

“No bedroom?” Michael repeated.

Sam shuffled his feet like a kid who had been caught in a lie. “…And   
no dining room.”

“…What kind of place is this, Sam?”

*** 

“It’s a hole.” Fiona’s voice came from the bathroom of the loft, her   
head ducking around to take in Michael’s incredulous expression. 

“It’s not that bad,” Sam said. “I’d pay to sleep in a dive like this back   
in Kandahar…”

“This isn’t Kandahar,” Michael pointed out, dumping a bottle of flat   
Pepsi into the kitchen trash and replacing it with a sackful of blueberry   
yogurt. “It’s downtown Miami.”

“And the real estate is cheaper in Kandahar,” she pointed out. “But at   
least here you won’t be shot stepping out of the shower.”

“Most of the time,” Sam cracked, leaning against the kitchen counter.   
“I dunno, Mike, what do you think? It’s on top of one of the busiest   
clubs in Miami, but the traffic isn’t too heavy – we both know we can   
sleep through heavy artillery fire if we have to. So it doesn’t matter   
how low the bass rattles…”

“You’re talking in circles,” Michael pointed out, unfolding his primly-  
pressed suitcase of clothing on the kitchen table. “How cheap are we   
talking here, Sam?” Michael wondered.

“Sugar will let us stay here for free, as long as we don’t tell the health   
inspector he’s subletting it to us.”

“My, how very secure,” Fiona remarked. 

“We’re both already in on it, Mike…I just kinda didn’t give you the   
details yet.” He smirked ruefully and scratched at his chin.

Michael closed his suitcase and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Oh, I   
already had a feeling something was wrong. You have a bad poker-  
face off the clock, Sam.”

Sam smirked at Michael. “Hey, I’m retired – I only lie if a steak dinner   
involved. Why are you so eager to get out of there, anyway? Did   
Maddie hide your toys?”

Michael winced. “My mother and I are from two different worlds, Sam,   
you know how that goes.”

“…So you just really wanted to get away from Maddie?”

Michael winced and pulled his sunglasses from his pocket. “Are you   
taking me to lunch at Carlitos or are we going to argue all day?”

Sam laughed and clapped Michael on the back. “All right, man, let’s   
go – and it’s my treat for once.” He smirked. “Gonna use Helena’s   
Gold Card while it’s still good.”

She tossed her hair. “Do we have to eat off of that woman’s charity?”

“Any port in a storm, Fi,” Sam pointed out. 

Fi rolled her eyes. “Did you learn that in the navy?”

“And in a few port towns,” he smirked, ushering them outside.

~~~~~~~~

Fiona rolled her eyes as Sam argued with their waiter, crunching on a   
stem piece of celery while the shouting increased in volume. You’d   
think the man was a barbarian from the way he fought a bill. 

“I’ll pay,” Michael offered, yanking his wallet out. Sam muttered an   
embarrassed word of thanks while he got up to leave, dumping his   
plastic margarita glass filled with half-melted mojito into the trash.   
Fiona wrinkled his nose as they exited the streetside cafe, walking   
back to Michael’s Charger.

“Nice car,” Fiona declared, running a hand along it in a sensuous   
manner, deliberately looking Sam in the eye. “Who did you buy it   
from?”

“My dad,” Michael winced. He bent to polish the rear-view mirror   
before climbing in. He squinted, bending forward, staring closely,   
before yanking his gun from his holster and spinning around. Sam   
was already digging his gun out of his waistband while Fi rustled   
through her purse for her Magnum. 

“…Why is that guy following us?” Sam got out, before the bullets   
started flying. 

~~~~~~~~

Somehow, between the three of them, they got the guy pinned down   
behind a garbage bin. Fiona had her knee on his windpipe when she   
reached for his mask. 

Only Sam heard the soft, fluttery sound of amazement she made when   
she pulled it off and revealed the face of their attacker. Then she was   
hugging him as if she’d never see him again. “Sean!”

 _Shit,_  Sam thought, but put a smile on his face as he held out   
a hand for Sean to shake. The younger man ignored it, happy to cling   
to his sister.

Gently, Sean pried Fiona from his grip. “Eating your oats lately, Tad?”   
he teased her. 

“I haven’t seen you in five years, Sean Glenanne! And this is how you   
greet me?” she glared down at him, clinging to his neck, waiting for   
his response.

“I’ve been travelling, Tad. But that’s water under the bridge, ain’t it?   
I’ve tracked you for months through the Congo and Egypt, but couldn’t   
stop them from hurting you.” Then, quite seriously, he added,   
“Seamus is in charge of the Group now. I think he might have tipped   
off your contact.”

Fiona’s breathing sped up appreciably, and Sam watched her with   
great trepidation, as if she were a deadly animal. “All right then. Best   
watch my back.”

“I’m only in the country on a student permit.” He smirked. “Borrowed   
from our dearest brother. He’s quite the scholarly forger, Fi.” 

She frowned. “I’d hoped he’d stay out of the lifestyle, eh?” she pulled   
him up. “Come with me back to Sam’s place.”

He finally laid eyes on the man who had seduced his sister those five   
long years ago. “Axe,” he said, using his name as a cudgel, a brand.   
“I see the bastard who broke my sister’s heart lived to see another   
sunset.”

“Hey Sean,” Sam replied, tucking his Beretta away. “Nice haircut.”

Sean glowered, not making a comment as to his own hair. “Fiona,” he   
murmured. “I can’t go with you. Letting the two of us dwell in the   
same house would be too much of a temptation for the bastard.”

Sam put a hand on Fi’s shoulder, and she reached up to squeeze it   
painfully tight. Michael snickered as Sam gasped out, “much as I hate   
to admit it, he’s right.” Prying his hand from Fi’s grasp, he added, “it’d   
be safer for you to stick with me and Mike at the loft.” 

She glanced from Sean to Sam, as if trapped between the possibility of   
the present and the pull of the past. Finally, she shoved Sam’s   
shoulder. “Take me home, you drunken sot. Sean,” she quickly   
added, “meet us tomorrow at the Café Carlito.”

Sean held up two fingers in a salute. “When the sun meets the sky,   
Tad.”

“How poetic,” Michael remarked, sliding into the driver’s seat beside   
Fiona. 

Sam laughed, buckling himself into the back seat. “Oh, she’s a real   
romantic, right Fi?”

Her fist collided with his nose, bruising Sam into silence.

*** 

Sam could sleep through nearly anything – as many a previous and   
heavily disgusted ladyfriend could attest. It was the tiny noises that   
alerted him to the possibility of a disturbance outside – and the   
throbbing of his nose wasn’t a help in lulling him back to sleep.   
Climbing out of bed, Sam crept to the door with his Beretta drawn,   
and then peered around the gloom of the apartment. Taking a   
chance, he squinted out of the large window beside the kitchen and   
saw a flash of red hair haloed in the streetlamp’s glow, two long arms   
extended, a weapon tight in her grip, and the rapid bang-ping of her   
firing a round into the side of a dumpster. Well, that was a surefire   
way to get herself injured or found out, and Sam sure as hell didn’t   
want to deal with the fallout of either option. 

He hung a head out the window and, over the percussive melody of   
the music blasting below in the club and the rapid ‘ping’ of her bullets   
slamming into the garbage can, coughed. Fiona ignored him   
completely, so he grabbed a couple of beers and headed outside. His   
high-pitched whistle did the trick; she whirled around, assault rifle   
hoisted and her shoulders rigid.

“Peace, kemosabe,” he held out a beer. “I bring firewater and many   
gifts to your wigwam.”

She rolled her eyes. “How charming.” But she seized the beer and   
drained half of it before he popped the cap on his. “Is it always so   
damned hot in Miami?”

“Nah, sometimes it’s chilly and muggy at the same time. You get used   
to it pretty quickly if you need to.” He eyed her stiff posture and   
carefully kept a reasonable amount of distance between them.   
“Having a little fun wasting Mr. Trashco?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sharpening my reflexes,” she said. “It’s   
something a smart woman does when she’s wanted.”

He chuckled, low-throated. “Beating the guys off with your club. It’s   
very you, Fi.”

“Don’t be sexist,” she tossed over her shoulder, red tendrils sticking to   
her sweat-glossed cheeks. “It could well be women Seamus had   
hired.”

“Who knows,” Sam shrugged agreeably. “Good thing you’re taking   
care. I wouldn’t want you to get carried off while I was sitting here   
picking my nose with my gun.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve gotten along very well without you, Sam,”   
she declared, haughty-voiced. “Should I demonstrate?”

“Demonstrate what?” Sam asked. “You could always shoot.”

She rolled her eyes, aimed the gun, and picked off a light bulb glued to   
the back wall of the loft’s old facade. Glass rained down upon the   
pavement, coating the dumpster. “I could have made it with my eyes   
shut,” she boasted.

Sam smirked down at her. “I know. You could knock a hole in a barn   
door with…what is that? An AK?” 

She yanked the rifle out of his hands. “Why would I let you touch   
something so delicate?” she glared. “You break everything soft and   
small you run across,” she pointed out.

“Calling yourself soft?” He shot back. “You’re tougher than a piece of   
marble, sugar,” he said.

Fiona said nothing more in return, staring away into the moonlight.   
Sam turned and headed toward the staircase, only to be grabbed   
about the neck and yanked backward onto the ground with a yelp.

Sam tried to give Fiona the grappling session she seemed to want   
without hurting her. They wrestled on the bare concrete wildly but   
dissolutely, without the hope of gaining the advantage, until, finally,   
Sam threw himself on top of her. “What the hell is your problem, Fi?   
First you try to smack me around, then you try and kiss me. Did lying   
around under that Russkie sun bake your brains?”

Fiona stared up at him, her eyes lambent, steamy. “Why is it always   
so damn hot?” she complained, her fingers threading though the thick,   
gray-streaked hair of his temples.

Then she pulled him down into a kiss.

*** 

When the sun rose the following morning, Fiona lay in Sam’s arms,   
holding him about the middle and sighing peacefully. “Well,” she   
smirked. “You haven’t lost much of your touch.”

Sam snickered. “Much?” he uttered.

She laughed and rolled onto her back. “No, Sam, not much at all,” she   
purred, stretching her arms over her head. 

“Well, I aim to please, pretty lady,” he remarked sarcastically,   
reaching over the side of the bed for his discarded beer. He slurped   
down the lukewarm contents while she watched him with a nauseated   
expression.

“You drink beer at…” she glanced at his alarm clock, which had been   
recently unpacked and placed on an ancient side table upon his   
moving into the loft, “five in the morning?”

“Hair of the dog,” he replied, taking another long swallow and leaning   
back on the bed. “You don’t drink anymore.”

“I never drank in the first place,” she pointed out. “It was always you   
and Sean.” She pouted and leaned into his side. “Did you ever think   
of me?”

He laughed. “Yeah, whenever some chick scratched my back,” he said   
flippantly, which got him a shove. “OW. Kidding, Fiona.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been so terrible to be thought of,” she pointed   
out. 

“I thought you were pissed off at me,” Sam pointed out.

She tugged at a lock of his chest hair. “It’s not who you are, it’s what   
you do,” she said, as if she were a brilliant psychologist. 

“You like what I do when we’re in bed.” 

“It might be the only place I enjoy your company,” she said, gathering   
the sheets up around her breasts. Yawning, she skimmed her toes   
across his shins teasingly as she slid out of bed. “Do you have   
anything for breakfast hidden in this shack?” she tossed her hair and   
climbed out of the bed, leaving Sam with a light blanket to cover him.

“Some yogurt in the fridge and some cereal’s in the cupboard,” Sam   
replied. He scratched his head and yawned.

“I don’t understand Michael’s obsession with yogurt,” she declared,   
frowning as she knocked over boxes and pulled open canisters.

“It’s a convenience food when you’re on the run,” Sam said. “He   
always said…”

“…This is major news, Sam,” Michael’s voice came from the suddenly   
open doorway. Fiona clutched the sheet instinctively closer to her   
breasts, and then shouted a stream of invective. Sam had reached   
into the kitchen drawer, wrapping his fingers around a hidden Glock,   
but he immediately relaxed at the sight of Michael. 

“Hey brother. What’s the word?”

Michael blinked at Fiona’s semi-naked form blankly for a couple of   
minutes before he turned back toward his file. “I’ve got some new   
intel,” Michael said, waving a folder before their faces. “The tissue   
traces Fi’s attackers left on her clothing were run through the crime   
lab. It turns out that there are two DNA matches in the International   
Criminal Database….” He pulled open the manila folder and poked two   
spots on the document. “Her brother is right; Seamus Tavish is a   
dead-on match for her attacker. The other guy’s a hired goon –   
wanted in six states for assault and breaking and entering.” 

Sam whistled, getting up unselfconsciously to look over the document.   
“How the hell did you hack into the ICD?” 

“I didn’t,” Michael replied. “One of your hacker friends owed me a   
favor from Iraq. I thought it’d be time to claim it.”

Sam grinned. “Brother, the smartest move I ever made was picking   
you up at the airport.”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you boys done? I’d like a   
proper breakfast. With Sam. Alone, otherwise,” she said, giving   
Michael a meaningful look.

“Right,” Michael rolled his eyes. “I’ll spend the morning where I spent   
last night. On my mother’s couch.” 

Sam grinned, not even having the grace to be sheepish about his joy   
in his upcoming conquest. “Sorry, brother – duty calls.”

“DUTY?” Fi rolled her eyes and turned away, toward the pot of coffee   
she’d put on the gas burner.

Sam smacked Michael on the back. “I owe you, Mikey – next time you   
ever want the place to yourself just kick me out!” 

Michael rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut behind him.

*** 

They gathered to pick apart Michael’s intel at the kitchen table a few   
hours later. “So Seamus is looking to heal some old wounds in the   
name of the old gold, green ‘n white,” Sam declared.

“And to taunt me for missed chances,” Fiona added. “Every man in   
Dublin thinks I owe him a taste of me.”

“A taste of you?” he wondered.

Sam raised an eyebrow and gave Fiona a meaningful, intense look, but   
she didn’t return his stare or acknowledge it. He continued, “it’s   
personal, Mikey. And it’s been that way longer than I knew Fi.”

Michael nodded. “I think we all know what the smart solution is.”

Fiona glared at him. “No, why don’t you explain it for us poor   
civvies?” she asked.

He took a deep breath, looked at Sam, and declared, “Fox them.”

Sam winced. “Foxing. Christ, I haven’t done that in years. How the   
hell do you think we could trick an IRA guy?”

“The same way we’d trick anyone,” Michael said. “You have training in   
this Sam, you know the rules.”

“I may know them but it’s different this time.”

Fiona stared insolently up at him, and Michael, too, frowned at Sam’s   
choice of words. Then he glanced once at Fiona and nodded. “Right.   
Protect Snow White.”

Fiona glared right at Michael, and then leveled Sam with a kinder look.   
“Do I need to beat you hand-to-hand combat again, Axe?”

He grinned back laconically. “I’d rather you beat my tongue to…”

Michael winced. “Can we please discuss the plan?” he snarled. 

Sam and Fiona turned and gave him an expectant stare. Immediately,   
he began to lay out his ideas. “The smartest way for us to go about   
this,” Michael declared, lounging back against the counter, “is to   
smoke him out. Make them think that one of us wants into their little   
band of terrorists, then take them down from the inside. One by one,   
until they’re weak. And we cut off the head.”

The hair on the back of Sam’s neck prickled; he felt Fiona staring at   
him, waiting for his reaction, her whole body tense. “They know who I   
am, and Fi…”

“But the only person who’s seen us together is Sean,” Michael pointed   
out. A ghost of a smile tilted his lips. “Maybe Michael McBride should   
make an appearance,” he said, caressing the name with a flawless   
Irish accent. 

Fiona raised an eyebrow, shot Sam a quick look, then turned toward   
Michael. “All right, McBride. I suppose you know…”

“…How the Troubles started. The Maguires. And why it’s called the   
Sinn Fein,” Michael said.

“Sounds like he passes the test,” Sam offered. “And you and me have   
some work to do,” he said, poking Fiona’s shoulder.

“Couldn’t shoe shopping be part of this little plan?” Fiona wondered.

“Gonna have to wait on that one, Fi,” Sam replied.

*** 

Sam and Fiona faced each other over the kitchen counter, pouring   
plastic explosives into casing molds, Sam in a bright floral apron that   
matched his shirt, and Fiona wore an apronette, her head bowed to   
the work and her lips pursed in concentration. It was silent, pleasant   
task, a time of easily-shared camaraderie; neither of them thinking of   
much as they molded together charges and prepared the next phase of   
the project.

“So we’re sewing next?” he asked.

She smiled. “Unless you want to scour the thrift shops for a proper   
mac.”

“Right. I suppose they don’t keep British raincoats lying around out   
here.” Sam sighed and sipped at his beer, eyeing the explosives. “We   
can’t sand-dry these. How do you do it?”

“Put them in the sink,” she said. “The cooler should insulate them.”

Sam nodded, lifting away the container and carrying them to the metal   
sink. He reached for a towel to wipe his hands, and then caught sight   
of something glimmering in the windowsill. He cracked a smile and   
pulled it into his palm.

In the background their three-way radio buzzed with fresh   
information; snippettes of Michael speaking in an Irish accent, proving   
his might to the soldiers. They had their ears peeled for any odd   
sounds of strife, Fiona had turned herself toward the radio and had   
distracted herself with their rabbleous talk and insistent chatter. 

A little grin spread over Sam’s face as he held the water globe under   
her nose. “You kept it?”

Fiona bristled, pushing his hand away. “Of course I did. It’s part of   
set,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to waste such a fine thing – even if   
it’s tied to my feelings for a bloody bastard.”

Sam frowned. “I thought we were past this, Fi.”

“I don’t deal well with loss,” Fiona replied. “I keep what’s mine, even   
the pain.” 

Sam raised an eyebrow, his hands on his hips. “What do you want to   
do? Bend me over the table and spank me ‘cause I’ve been bad?   
We’re walking around in circles and I’m getting sick of it.”

She cradled the snowglobe to her hand. “Maybe one day you’ll know   
what it’s like to be vulnerable, Sam.”

Very gently, he reached out to cup her cheek. “You don’t think I’m   
vulnerable with you?” He slowly turned Fi’s face toward the sunlight,   
catching all of the golden-red highlights in her hair. “I’m scared half to   
death most of the time I’m around you, honey.”

“You’re never scared. You’re stronger than any man I’ve ever met.” 

He snickered. “Here’s a secret, doll.” He leaned up close to her and   
whispered, “I put on one hell of a front.”

Fiona rested her palm against his cheek for a moment. No slap, no   
punch; just a deep, dark-eyed stare. Sam gulped and waited for her   
to hit him – a touch, a slap, a caress, something to jolt him and wake   
him from whatever holding pattern they’d entered in. But she just   
held his cheek and looked up at him balefully. 

“Buck up,” she demanded, patting his cheek. Then she turned toward   
the material bunched on the table. They’d worked in silence for   
another minute before a sudden static rush of sound drew them both   
toward the radio.

“…And if I were lying,” Michael lilted, a note of warning in his voice,   
“do you think I’d do this, sporto?” There was an audible cracking   
noise, a gasp from the gangsters, and a wince from Sam. 

Fiona just grinned, a look that ultimately made Sam smile in return.   
“Didn’t Mikey tell you he’s double-joined?” he grinned. “Little trick we   
figured out when he was a grunt. He can dislocate his finger and yank   
it back in joint without a problem. Makes it look like it’s broken.”

Fiona glowered, but added nothing to the conversation. Various oaths   
were exchanged over the radio, and a small smirk betrayed her   
feelings. “If he gets in we’ll have to track him. I hope you’re ready   
for a long night.”

He smirked. “You know I’m always up for a long night.”

“Oh, shut up,” she sighed, and pushed him away with surprising   
fondness.

~~~~~~~~

They had a dinner of take-out food and warm beer, Fiona’s head   
reluctantly tucked against Sam’s shoulder, and her fingers playing idly   
with his chest hair. There didn’t seem to be much danger involved for   
Michael at the moment; in fact he was set to crash at another couch.   
They’d pre-arranged a signal; Michael would mention ‘eggs and toast’   
and they’d take off for Carlitos, meeting him at their table, handling   
the morning briefing. They’d have some general idea of what the plan   
was for Fi’s elimination by then – and that it likely tied into the case   
Michael’s mother had given them. Sam had a sneaking suspicion   
about that.

“They have to be funding their runs somehow,” he said, shoveling in   
another mouthful of popcorn. “I’d bet you my left nut that they’re   
melting down cars for cash.”

“Don’t bet your most prized possession,” she said, rolling her eyes.   
“Whatever would you do without ‘Mr. Lucky’.” 

Sam grinned. “Hey, you remembered!”

“Must every conversation we have revolve around your little…”

“Hey, no insulting Mr. Lucky! He knows his manners.” He listened to   
the radio carefully, holding up a hand and tapping Fiona’s shoulder.   
“Hey. Got quiet out of nowhere.”

She frowned. “Do you think they’ve…”

A shout penetrated the air. Followed by a gunshot. Fiona was in her   
heels and grabbed the keys in two seconds flat. “Lincoln and Vine,”   
she said, reading aloud the coordinates Michael had snuck them subtly   
a few hours ago. “The back alley.” 

Sam felt guilty for getting so lax on the job. Michael knew what he   
was doing; it had been pretty entertaining to listen to. What the hell   
had he been thinking of, baiting them into shooting him? Protecting   
Fiona, of course. He wouldn’t complain about Michael’s chivalry, but   
now wasn’t the time to go soft.

He slid behind the passenger side seat of Michael’s Charger; Fiona was   
already turning the ignition. “I never said you could drive this – do   
you even know which side of the road you’re supposed to be riding   
on?” 

She rolled her eyes and gunned the motor and the Charger lurched   
across two lanes of traffic. Sam’s knuckles went white against his   
safety belt. Sam made another squawking noise as Fi’s swerve threw   
them against each other in the cab of the car. “For Christ’s sake!” 

“I’m getting the job done, aren’t I?” she snapped. “Hold on!” she   
demanded, taking a hairpin turn. Sam choked on his gum. He clung   
to the door. He prayed that they’d end up in the right place without   
meeting horrible, fiery, and untimely ends. 

Fiona ignored Sam’s pitched complaints, turning the car around and   
gunning it in the opposite direction. She cursed as they headed   
backwards up an embankment; on the second try she got off the right   
exit and drove the car directly down the back alleyway, just enough of   
a distraction to break up a burgeoning brawl.

Both could hear the fight, and both were surprised that Michael was   
holding his own. There were only three thugs, none of whom either   
recognized, all of whom they dispatched; Sam with his fists, Fiona with   
the fists and gun and shoe, and all three with their wits and the power   
of their teamwork. The group of thugs scattered, and Sam threw an   
arm around Michael’s shoulders.

“You all right, buddy?”

“Perfectly fine,” Michael said formally. “I think I’m gonna have to…”

He took one step forward and passed out cold.

~~~~~~~~

Sam pressed a cold compact to Michael’s brow as his best friend   
winced back to consciousness. “Try to stay awake, Mikey. It’s a damn   
concussion.”

“I couldn’t tell,” Michael replied with a groan, rubbing his temple.

Fiona sat perched nearby, watching. “Did you at least learn   
anything?” she pouted.

“Oh, several things,” Michael said lightly. “Where they’re housing their   
arms…” he smirked and held out a small transmission receiver. He   
turned up the volume and the sound of Seamus’ voice filled the room.

Sam laughed and slapped Michael on the back. “Mikey! You genius!!   
We can follow ‘em everywhere from Timbuktu to the bottom of the   
ocean with that thing.”

Michael winced. “Right…just stop smacking me whenever I do   
something semi-brilliant,” Michael groaned.

“May I?” Fiona retorted. “If you have details I’d appreciate them,” she   
replied, clipped, angry.

Michael grunted. “You’ve got everything I know. The arms are in a   
warehouse somewhere on Lafayette Market,” he replied. “They never   
told me how much they have, but it’s enough to buy the death of   
anyone they’d consider a problem.” He deliberately gave Fiona a   
once-over, silently letting her know she was the problem, not anyone   
else. A roll of the eyes as she turned toward Sam told him it was time   
for him to step in.

“We’re gonna need to muscle through their defense lines,” Sam   
replied, his look thoughtful. “All we’ve got is fake C4 and skulking   
around almost got Mikey beaten to a pulp.” 

Fiona’s eyes lit up with manic energy. “Are we going to show a little   
brute force, Sam?”

“Hell yes, princess,” Sam grinned. “Are you game?”

“Finally!” she laughed. “I thought I’d never get to use these.” She   
yanked two rather large pistols from the holsters strapped under her   
boots.

Sam gawked at the guns, but not at the confidence blazing in her   
eyes. He knew Fiona, understood how very dangerous she was. It   
sort of turned him on but on another, more primal level he smelled   
danger and recoiled a bit. “All right. So Mike was wrong and stealth   
didn’t do the trick. Guess it really is time we showed them a little old-  
fashioned brute force.”

“Force them?” Sam suggested.

“Force,” Michael and Fiona declared together, wearing identical   
Cheshire grins. 

Sam smirked in response, already picturing the melee to follow. 

~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t as much fun as interrogating a witness, but the art of   
sneaking into a compound or organization and making them believe   
you not only knew better than they did, but you were willing to export   
that knowledge to the highest bidder for any and every bit of   
weaponry they owned – took time. They may have known and   
suspected Sam, Michael, and Fiona…but they never would have   
recognized the charges they’d made – once innocent dupes, now   
carefully wired with charges - carefully sunken into a large cooler,   
which was exactly what Fiona did. They sat crouched by the   
warehouse Michael had tailed the entire company to, waiting to spring   
their surprise and blow the place to kingdom come.

That was when a familiar-looking vehicle wheeled up to the back of the   
chop shop. Sam lowered his binoculars and stared in blank shock.   
“…Hey Mike. Is…that our client’s car?”

Michael nodded his head. “Looks like we got a lucky break.” They all   
knew the bastards were chopping up cars, and that Madeline’s son’s   
friend was somehow involved, but not that their client’s car was part of   
the ring. Michael squinted into his binoculars and added, “It doesn’t   
look that rare, but I’m not the car expert here.”

Sam squinted through the binoculars. “It’s a Pontiac, just like she told   
me it was. Wonder if there’s more than meets the eye. “ 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Fi said, running her finger lovingly   
over the trigger switch of the bomb. 

“Wait,” Sam said. He watched several thugs poke through the car,   
under the upholstery of the front seat. All of them gaped in surprise   
as they pulled out baggies of cellophane filled with a fine, white   
powder. 

“I had a feeling they were working more than a chop shop,” Michael   
groaned. “Looks like we’ve got a serious smuggling situation going   
on.” 

“Cocaine?” Fiona muttered.

“Well, now we know why their chop shop skills aren’t up to snuff,”   
muttered Sam. It was an amazing amount of cocaine. “Your mom’s   
friend’s kid is in on this.”

“Hopefully Ma doesn’t know about it.” Michael’s worried frown told   
them both that he was worried Madeline was somehow involved in the   
mess in a less than innocuous way. 

Sam eyed his friend. “Mike, you’ve gotta learn to trust the women in   
your life. They’re the key to keeping you sane.”

Fiona gave Sam a particularly significant look, which was utterly and   
hopelessly lost on him as he returned the binoculars. “Got your gun,   
Fi?”

“When do I not?” she scoffed. Sam thought it’d been a good idea to   
ask, anyway.

“Do you really think the three of us can scare off a gang of hardened   
thugs?” Sam wondered. “We might’ve kicked their asses before, but   
this is international-level cocaine smuggling we’re talking about.”

Michael smirked. “I’d put my faith in us, not them.” 

Sam grinned. “On the count of two, guys.”

“One…” Fi counted.

“TWO,” they called together. Fi pressed the wire, blowing the car sky   
high, and Mike and Sam charged in, weapons blazing. Heads rolled,   
prisoners were taken, and Sam and Fi and Mike took a group of photos   
to send to Seamus of the piles of coke they’d seized, just to let him   
know just how royally fucked his supply line was. 

“If push comes to shove,” Fiona suggested, “we could sell these for a   
pretty penny. I always wanted to own my own original Dior…”

“Fi,” Sam warned.

“Just a suggestion, Sammy,” she replied quickly, packing the coke   
away. 

“We’re keeping this for evidence,” Michael said. “We’ll need every   
damn flake to get what we want out of these bastards.”

“Where do you suggest we hide it?” Fi asked.

Sam and Michael stared at one another, and then nodded knowingly.

~~~~~~~~ 

“Heyy, Mikey!” Sugar grinned as the three of them headed through his   
front door. He eyed the shopping bags. “Woah, what’s with all of the   
heavy merch?” 

“Let’s just say we shoplifted some stuff from some bad guys,” Mike   
pulled the bricks of coke out of the bag and Sugar’s eyes widened.

“Are you wearing a wire?” he gaped. 

Michael smirked. “Nope. This is one hundred percent pure   
Columbian.”

“We got it at a discount price,” Sam replied. “We just need to stash it   
until we can turn it anonymously in to the cops,” he gave Fiona a   
sharp glance before continuing, “And my friend here just doesn’t know   
who else she could trust with it.”

Sugar stared blankly at the incredibly large amount of coke. Glanced   
up at Sam and then at Mike and tried to figure out exactly how they   
were going to manage to get the stuff into and out of his hovel without   
anyone noticing. “Right. I’ll hide your stash. But you won’t tell   
anyone about the…”

“…faulty sprinklers and the clogged back stairwell at the club. Got it,”   
Michael said, adjusting his sunglasses. Sugar eyed the coke with lust   
and they all had a feeling it wouldn’t last for the rest of the night. 

“It doesn’t matter if he sells it,” Michael declared, as they headed   
down to the Charger and prepared to drive back to the loft and see if   
their bug had picked anything up. “What we want is someone to take   
it off our hands. The pictures are enough proof.”

“He does make a good patsy,” Sam said. “Not a good landlord, but a   
great patsy.” Michael turned the key and slowly started to pull the car   
around to the back of the loft.

Fiona was staring at Michael. “I had no idea you were so…competent.” 

“That’s pure Mike Westen,” Sam replied. “International man of   
mystery and builder of a mean Korean barbeque pit.” 

“I had some help with that one,” Michael declared.

They all jumped as a brick was thrown through the windshield from a   
rather great height.

“Shit,” Sam grunted, yanking his gun toward his shoulder. Somehow   
Fiona strafed the assailant out of the tree – when they rushed out of   
the car to confront him, they quickly discovered that she had shot him   
through the neck. They stared down at the unmoving corpse of the   
black-masked, black-jumpsuited intruder. Michael bent over and   
quickly pulled the mask back. They scoured the body for any and all   
signs of identification, and after some searching pulled up a small   
necklace clenched in his hand. 

“Claddagh,” Sam said, recognizing the insignia instantly.

“He’s trying to make a point,” Fiona noted. 

“He’s doing a good job,” Michael replied. 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” replied Fi. “If they’d succeeded, I’d be dead.” 

Sam shook his head. “You’re not dying, Fi, not if I have anything to   
say about it.”

“How chivalrous,” she rolled her eyes. “Do you boys know how to get   
rid of a dead body?”

*** 

Afterwards, Sam and Fiona shared a shower in the Loft while Michael   
replayed the audio they’d managed to get from their little explosive   
diversion. “So what happens when we get rid of Seamus once and for   
all? You gonna run back to Ireland on the next plane?”

Fiona ran a slick palm over Sam’s chest. “Why now, you sound jealous   
Sammy.”

He smirked. “Of a little pencil like you? Maybe. Maybe I don’t want   
you to leave me.”

Her jaw loosened. “You might know the right words to make me   
stay.”

A cough came from the doorway, and they turned to see Michael   
watching them with a raised eyebrow; Sam clutched Fi to his chest   
protectively, trying to keep Michael from seeing anything too vital.   
“We’ve got a good tip,” he said. “They’re looking to take a hostage,”   
he was already checking his gun. “The nearest available target to Fi is   
only five miles away, and if I have to guess from coordinates…”

Sam felt her heart speed up, felt her tense in his grip. “My God,   
they’re going after Sean.”

“Nope,” he jammed the gun into his waistband. “My mom and her   
friend.”

“But why…” Fiona began, already grabbing the towel down and rubbing   
herself dry.

“Because we’ve got the key to their operation. They know that we   
know they’ve got a massive coke operation and they’ll do anything to   
keep it under wraps.” Michael glared, blatantly ignoring everything as   
the two lovers quickly dried themselves, dressed, and started loading   
their pistols. “Including trying to kill any witnesses. Since they can’t   
take out the strong, they’ll go for the weak.”

Sam was half dressed by that point, yanking his clothes on and   
keeping pace with Michael. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Take care of my mom. Protect Fi. By any means necessary.”

Sam nodded, but Fi wasn’t about to go down without a fight. With wet   
hands, she cocked the gun, loading a fresh magazine and then stared   
at both men. “Let’s get them.”

“Fi…this is really gonna be risky for you,” Sam worried. “Are you sure   
you want to…”

“I need to,” she responded. “If I have to go down, I’d rather go down   
shooting on my feet than on my knees and begging.”

She and Sam locked eyes. Both knew exactly what brewed under the   
surface – both understood how much each gambled in this madness   
that threatened to eat them alive. It was a risk and a cost.

And they both knew they were willing to risk it.

~~~~~~~~

“Why do you need me to go to the basement?” Madeline complained,   
puffing away on her cigarette as Michael shepherded her down to the   
lowest level of the house. 

“Safety’s sake, ma.” 

Her eyes widened as she shot Sam a suspicious look. Her mouth,   
however, brought forth pure saccharine. “It’s not another tornado   
warning, is it? We just had one of those!”

“Tis the season,” Michael said, his face tense and unsmiling as he   
gently pushed the woman toward the basement. Fi crouched on the   
floor, her gun balanced in her lap, eyes focused and steely on some   
faraway objective. Both she and Sam heard the bushes rustle just   
after Michael shuffled Maddie into the basement. 

The first bullet pinged into the kitchen, ricocheting off of Madeline’s   
yellow enamel coffeepot, and embedding itself into the wall behind   
them. Whatever skills Seamus had always borne as a strategist, time   
had worsened his abilities, arrogance eroding them. Sam was sure   
they would be able to take them, especially with Mike covering the   
entire group. 

“Fi,” he whispered, as she calmly reloaded and fired in the direction of   
the whizzing bullets, “If something happens today…”

She growled. “Save your breath, Sam,” she fired a round into the   
bushes, through the broken window of Madeline’s kitchen, causing an   
unseen assailant to cry out in pain. “You’ll need it all if we need to   
run.”

The bullets pinged and whizzed by, an occasional cry of frustrated   
agony came from the bushes. Sam reached over and squeezed Fi’s   
shoulder and she shoved it away, cursing softly as she missed a target   
and laughing when she brought a shout from their assailant. Sam   
vaguely heard Maddie give an oath of surprise from below them as   
Michael barreled up the stairs and started firing over their shoulders.   
Sitting hunched by the counter, glaring into the morning light, they   
tried to keep themselves from worrying too much about how many   
soldiers Seamus had brought with them – they guarded the gas oven   
and made sure not to draw too much fire toward the basement steps   
and give away Madeline’s position.

Suddenly, the assault ceased. Very cautiously, Sam lowered his rifle   
and glanced at Fiona and Michael. Mike wiped his sweaty brow and   
squinted down the sight of his scope rifle. 

“Think it might be over?”

“Maybe. Which of us is gonna check?”

Both men paused as they realized they were alone. And the back door   
of the kitchen was swinging. 

Sam sprung to his feet and ran toward the back door. “FIONA!” he   
shouted, racing through Madeline’s now-ruined garden. He had seen a   
thousand ugly sights in his lifetime, but nothing had prepared him for   
the vision of Fiona, being held in a chokehold by Seamus. 

She wasn’t a victim, even in this moment; both of her hands were   
wrapped around Seamus’ neck, and while he held her throat in one   
hand and his rifle in the other he didn’t seem confident of his position.

He spared Sam an ugly grin. “You’ve caught up with us at last, have   
ya, Axe?”

“I’m a good tracker,” Sam replied lightly. “Let’s just say when I sniff   
something rotten in the breeze I know how to get rid of it.” 

Fi let out a wheezing gasp as Seamus released her throat, clutching   
her to his torso and training his gun on Sam. “Seems like I’m the one   
with the fortune in my pocket this time, Axe. Watcha say we make a   
trade; give me my coke and you can close your eyes while I blow a   
hole through Fi’s head.” 

“No deal. See, I’ve got a problem with you trying to hurt the woman I   
love,” Sam replied. “I hope you understand why I think you need to   
be put down like a foaming dog.”

Seamus let out an ugly chuckle. “And what are you gonna bargain   
with? I’m a generous sport, ya see - I’ve got the girl and the power. I   
could begrudge you the drugs, but with my connections I could find   
myself another few kilos. You don’t even have a leg to stand on.   
Such a pity that he don’t even have the class to die with grace, but   
what could I say for a pathetic American?”

Sam managed to suppress a grin. The blasting cap Michael had wired   
to the engine block of his father’s Charger glowed just before it blew,   
making Seamus start in alarm. It was all the opportunity they   
needed; Fi turned into a dead weight in his arms, slumping backward   
and giving Sam just enough room to get in a shot. He lifted his rifle   
and blew a hole into the nearest vital part of Seamus’ anatomy.

The shot that rang out came from behind him; Michael providing   
distracting coverage that, for once, missed his target entirely –   
probably intentionally. It wasn’t even Sam’s bullet that did the deed.   
When he looked up, he saw Fiona standing over Seamus’ corpse, a   
pistol smoking in her fist. She lifted her foot, kicked Seamus in the   
ribs, and slid the gun back into her belt loop.

Sam grabbed her and whirled her around. “Holy shit, Fi…” Her kiss   
was sudden, sharp and deep. 

“Did you mean that?” 

He stood, gasping. “Yeah.”

She grinned. “I’m holding you to it, you old bastard.”

“Right back at you, Fi,” he growled, pulling her up into another kiss.

In the doorway of the kitchen, Michael and Madeline took it all in; the   
kissing lovers, the corpse, the smoking ruins of Frank Westen’s car.   
Madeline turned to her son and asked, “What was all of that?”

Michael shook his head. “Sam being Sam.” He let the twosome alone   
to make out. “Let’s have some coffee. And one more thing?”

She ran a hand through her freshly-cut hair and groaned. “What?”

“I want a cigarette.”

~~~~~~~~

 _"Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted."_    
\- Wu Ch'eng-En, Journey to the West

**THE END**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Artwork for The Golden Lotus by Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/491600) by [hollymarchosias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollymarchosias/pseuds/hollymarchosias)




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